


Two Weddings And a Funeral

by kirisheight



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Character Death, Everyone Is Gay, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Found Family, M/M, So much angst, Wedding, attempted humor i guess, i promise it gets less sad, i wasn't even trying it just happened, no like literally everyone, yuuri and victor adopt yuri
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:53:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 44,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27141367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kirisheight/pseuds/kirisheight
Summary: To the people who don't know him and the Yuri's Angels who think they do, Yuri Plisetsky is a mystery, a stormy ocean with an impenetrable surface and hidden depths.Fanpages and message forums say he's mysterious and unpredictable, (apparently tired and pissed off is the new desirable) and the press call him arrogant and reclusive. But they're both wrong. Yuri's face is an open book; the only problem is almost nobody cares enough to read it.Anyone even remotely close to Yuri can tell you he's a sarcastic, grumpy little shit with a massive inferiority complex, who is fiercely,desperatelyin love with Otabek Atin.Anyone except Otabek Altin.~When Yuri's life falls to pieces after a sudden tragedy, he does what he does best, and pushes away the one person who could possibly have stopped the aching.Now, he's faced with two choices. Try to heal, to scrape the ragged edges of his life back together alone, and live with the hole in his chest.Or do whatever it takes to find him again.
Relationships: Christophe Giacometti/Christophe Giacometti's Boyfriend, Jean-Jacques Leroy/Isabella Yang, Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov, Leo de la Iglesia/Ji Guang-Hong, Mila Babicheva/Sara Crispino, Otabek Altin/Yuri Plisetsky, Phichit Chulanont/Lee Seung Gil
Comments: 52
Kudos: 129





	1. Two Weddings and a Funeral

**Author's Note:**

> i realise i'm a little late in posting a yuri on ice fic  
> trigger warnings at the end

Yuri Plisetsky, the self-named Ice Tiger of Russia, two-time consecutive winner of both the Junior World Championships and the Junior Grand Prix Finals, as well as the Grand Prix Finals, is absolutely off his non-existent tits on vodka, cocktails, and enough drugs to knock out an elephant.

He stands swaying under a broken streetlight, the bulb flickering weakly. Each dying burst of orange just shows the desperate state he's in; his clothes and hair clinging to his damp skin with sweat, his pupils blown so wide you can barely see the trademark green iris, the greyish, clammy tinge to his skin.

A wave of nausea sends Yuri stumbling towards the grand building across the street. His legs shake as he staggers forwards, and for fear of collapsing he braces his hands on the wall either side of the doorway. His head hangs limply as he tries to remember how to think.

Whatever he's taken has flipped reality. The street is cold and silent, the only light the amber glow of the streetlamps, but for him the world is spinning, flashing, phantom laughter mocking him from the edges of his imploding mind. Bursts of colour and noise are circling closer and closer, circus clown vultures preying on his sanity.

His stomach contracts, and Yuri is forced to his knees as he brings up the contents of his stomach all over the polished brass doorstep.

With his throat burning, eyes prickling with tears surely made of acid, he folds to the cold pavement. As the world desaturates and fades to soft darkness, the last thing Yuri sees is the door swing open.

_Two weeks earlier_

"So, the upshot of it is we're getting back together. We're not getting married or anything - we never actually got divorced. We wanted to tell everyone now so that we don't upstage the wedding next week."

Lilia and Yakov had called a special meeting after training that day. While Yuri sulked at the wasted time, Yuuri and Victor had asked for an extra fifteen minutes before joining them. Yuri's trying very hard not to think about what they could be doing right now.

Mila rises from her chair and draws Lilia into a tight hug, moving away from Yakov's earshot as she whispers, "If you ever do anything to hurt him, I'll shut your little ballet feet in a car door. He lost enough hair after your first split, and I can't have a bald coach. It makes me look bad."

She shines a dazzling smile at Lilia as she moves away, and the ballerina laughs stiltedly, not entirely clear on whether Mila's joking.

And just as Yuri is about to deliver a rather more obvious threat, the double doors swing open and Yuuri and Victor tumble out, giggling and clutching armfuls of bright flowers and balloons. "Congratulations!" They turn to Yakov and Lilia and, in revolting synchronicity, hand them a blue balloon and a bouquet. The orange and yellow flowers should look garish against the grey walls of the meeting room, but privately Yuri thinks it needs a little brightening up. God knows something does.

Lilia admires Yakov's balloon. "It matches the scarf I bought you. Did you plan this?"

"I still wear that scarf, you know. It's been thirty seven years- No, I had no idea. Those two are a force to be reckoned with when it comes to celebrations."

"Not like you, my grumpy husband."

One disgustingly affectionate couple, Yuri can deal with. Two? Not so much.

He's bitter and lonely and _painfully_ in love with his best friend, okay? Why can't the universe understand that? He's closer than ever to confessing his feelings, but it seems that with every day his resolve strengthens, yet another couple gets engaged, or married, or has a baby.

And he's happy for them. He is. It just feels as if while everyone else is on play, following the sunlit path set out for them with ease, he's stuck in slow motion, the shadowed possibility of disaster holding him back.

~

Yakov draws him aside as the other skaters pack up to leave. "Yuri, I need to talk to you."

He lets out a deep sigh. Yakov's face is apologetic, and Yuri's exhausted. His body is weighed down, crushed by the feeling of being left out, and he's sure any more bad news will send him crashing straight through the floor to the centre of the earth.

"Now that Lilia and I are getting back together, we've decided to move to her house. I'll be selling mine, for money reasons. The thing is, Yuri, she only has one bedroom."

"I am not sharing a bed with you and your scary ballet wife."

Yakov chuckles. "I wouldn't expect you to. You have a grandfather in Moscow, am I correct? I've reached out to your old coach there, and she's more than willing to take you back. I'll be frank, Yuri, I've set you up to win for the next few years. You don't need a top coach; you're the one at the top."

"Of course, should you want to stay here in St Petersburg, I'll happily keep coaching you. You'd need to find another legal guardian, just until you turn eighteen, and it will be easy, I am sure, to find you a foster parent- everyone wants their child to be a prodigy, and here you are. Ready-made."

"No. No, that's okay. You really think I can keep winning if I go back to training under Maria?"

"I do, Yuri. Truly."

He thinks for a while. Sure, he'll miss Mila (and maybe even Victor and Katsudon, just a bit) and he'll miss the gulls crying above the Neva, but Yuri has moved cities before, and he can do it again. He doesn't love St Petersburg any more than Moscow; the threads attached to his heart lead to people, not places.

And the other end of the strongest of those is wrapped around his grandfather.

Yuri misses him. So much. It's a constant ache in his chest, a spike of red hot metal in his heart that goes away whenever he sees him standing in the airport, and burns white-blue when he leaves again. Even the thought brings him embarrassingly close to tears, but Dedushka can't have long left; he's been hopitalised for heart problems twice in the last three years.

If Yuri can spend the next two years with one of the people he loves most in the world, who's loved and raised him from a baby, he'll be as happy as The Russian Punk can be without ruining his reputation.

Nikolai has done so much for him. Though nothing can compare to the great act of love and sacrifice that is raising a child, it's time for Yuri to repay it as best he can.

Dedushka saw Yuri into this world. Yuri will see him out.

~

It doesn't hurt that Moscow is 1300 miles closer to Almaty, either.

"Then I'll do it. And when... when Dedushka doesn't need me anymore, I'll come back."

"And I'll be glad to see you."

Yuri sticks out his hand. "Thank you, Yakov. For everything."

Shaking his head, Yakov pulls him into a bear hug. "You stupid boy; a handshake. You're ridiculous."

"Shut the fuck up." Yuri squeezes his skinny arms around Yakov's waist as hard as he can, trying not to cry. Okay, perhaps he'll miss Yakov a little too.

"We'll give you as long as you need to move out. I've spoken to your grandfather, and he's delighted to see you whenever. Oh, and don't think we're not throwing you a leaving party."

Normally Yuri would be furious that Yakov had talked to Nikolai behind his back. He'd be throwing things by now, and Mila would probably be taking pictures. (The image is surprisingly painful.) But some things are too important to be angry over. Yuri's leaving the people he'll never admit are his friends to take care of his grandfather, his whole family. It's worth it no matter what.

By the time of the leaving party three days later, everything is settled. Yuri will fly tomorrow with Victor and Katsudon from St Petersburg to Guangzhou for Leo and Guang Hong's wedding, then return to Moscow alone.

He's under pain of death by Victor not to arrive at the rink until 2 at least. Despite what he says on conditioning days, Yuri does actually enjoy living- there are no katsudon pirozhki in Hell- so he walks through the doors at quarter past.

The rink is empty, sunlight streaming through the glass ceiling and onto the ice, so Yuri pulls on his skates. He runs through his short program for the upcoming season, a fast-paced, technical piece as empty of personal thoughts and emotions as he can make it. 

Yakov had wanted him to focus on the feeling of the piece after the phenomenal success of his Agape routine, but there are very few people that can inspire that much love in Yuri. He's already used his grandfather, and that had been hard enough. He'd hated baring his soul to the public like that, stripping himself of his skin on the ice and standing before the judges with all his scars and faults glaringly obvious for anyone to see. He can't bring himself to do it again.

He only has feelings strong enough to make a half-decent routine for one other person, and what he feels for Otabek is even more personal. It's somehow untouchable to anyone but himself, the one secret he keeps locked up in the dark. He'll die before he uses his hopeless love for his best friend to win against him.

Rousing from his thoughts, Yuri realises that maybe he will miss this place. The sprays of ice that shine in the sunlight as he makes a jump, the only sound in the room him and the ice. It won't be the same in the polished, glaringly impersonal rink of the Moscow gymnastics centre. This is his rink, and while the people in it matter more to him than the place ever could, this is where he's most at home.

 _It will be fine,_ he comforts himself. _I'll be back after... I''ll be back one day._

A noise from the meeting room makes him turn his head, slipping off his skates and padding over in his skate socks. Through the glass panels in the door, he can see that the room is dark. Jesus Christ, they're planning some lame surprise, aren't they? With a sigh, he pushes open the door, and is violently attacked.

The lights flicker on overhead. Mila's flung her arms around his neck and is strangling him with the force of her hug. "Let me go, you crazy hag, I can't breathe!"

She steps back, tears in her eyes despite her laugh. "Typical Yuri. God, I'm going to miss you." His throat aches, and his eyes burn, so he pulls away from her, trying to scowl, because if he doesn't he thinks he might cry.

Behind her, Victor and Yuuri are brandishing a pile of neatly folded material. Georgi has clearly forgotten and is clutching an armful of chocolate bars from the vending machine, and Yakov and Lilia are standing at the back, leading the ragtag family. 

"Yuri, we have a surprise for you!" Yuuri is clearly trying to hold back a wide beam (and failing miserably.)

"You're not fooling anyone, Katsudon, I can see the clothes."

Victor laughs. "Trust me, that's not the surprise."

Yuuri plucks a black tiger shirt off the top of the pile, and the tiny kitten curled amongst the clothes gives a soft yowl.

"Oh my fucking god, you _didn't._ "

"Oh, we did."

He reaches into the kitten's cosy nest, and as his fingers touch impossibly soft fur, Victor yelps.

Yuuri is at his side in an instant. "She bit you? Victor-"

"I love her already." The kitten, small and warm curled against Yuri's chest, is already yawning.

Mila scoops her out of his arms and cooes over her like a new mother. "Sara and I will look after her for you until she's old enough to join you in Moscow. Plus, _we're_ babysitting Potya and Makkachin while you go to the wedding. I had to fight Chris for it, Yuri; I saw so many things."

"Try me, bitch. I'm coming to get her the moment I'm settled in Moscow. She's already my favourite person in the room."

"Yuri, that thing is vicious." Victor is milking it, as usual; she hasn't even broken the skin.

"It's your fault, Victor, you scared her. Nasty old baldy man made you jump, didn't he?" The last words are spoken directly to the kitten in a soft voice.

Despite his fatal wound, Victor smiles at Yuri. "Our kid is adorable."

"For the last time, Victor, you and Katsudon are not my fucking parents!"

Yuuri raises an eyebrow. "Our kid has anger issues."

"Shut up. Pig."

Caught off guard, he's suddenly enveloped in a tight hug. Victor and Yuuri are warm and comforting, and he feels much younger than sixteen as they hold him, all of his anger gone no matter how hard he tries to scowl.

"You know, we're really going to miss you, you little shit." says Victor.

Yuuri holds him a little closer, resting his chin on the top of Yuri's head. "Come visit us, okay? Lots."

For what seems like the tenth time today, Yuri finds himself blinking back tears.

"I will."

~

Any lingering feelings of affection are well and truly crushed by the plane journey; a fifteen hour flight squished up to Yuuri and Victor in economy seats, _when they can easily afford first class._

Their reasoning is that first class seats are too far apart for the lovebirds, who apparently have to be together for every minute of every day. Seats on another plane entirely would be too close for Yuri; there's nothing like a deliriously happy couple to make you contemplate your own stark singleness. And so that's what he does. All the way to China. 

Thank god for Georgi's chocolate.

~

The setting Chinese sun streams in through the floor-to ceiling windows, filling the white room with golden light. Framed against the blushing sunset are Leo and Guang Hong, stood in front of all their friends and family. As the officiator declares them married, Leo raises a trembling hand to Guang Hong's chestnut hair, moving it behind his ear and lingering to touch his face. Guang Hong's smile lights up the room, and he tugs the front of Leo's collar, pulling him in for a kiss. Under the arch of pink lilies and ivy, their silhouette could almost be one person.

Even from three rows back, Yuri can see they're both crying, and they aren't the only ones. To his left, Victor and Yuuri have suspiciously shiny eyes, and their foreheads are touching as they smile and whisper to one another. Yuri hears much more of it than he'd like.

"They seem so much older than when we first met them. They were just little children then- Guang Hong could have ordered the children's menu and the waitress would have just ruffled his hair. "

"How would you know? When we first met them you were blind drunk."

"My Yuuri is so mean to me."

"You're an idiot."

"You love this idiot."

There's a pause as Yuuri places a butterfly kiss on Victor's cheek.

"Yes, I do. So much."

Yuri tries desperately to tune them out, distracting himself by thinking about the newlyweds. It's true that they're young to be getting married- Guang Hong is only eighteen- but they've been dating for years.

It'd been a bit of a surprise when everyone found out at the Grand Prix Final Banquet last year. Beforehand, Yuuri had asked Victor to make sure he didn't really overdo it on the champagne again. 

Slightly later, Yuri had tried to bribe Victor to make sure he did, but Victor kept to his word- Yuuri stayed well away from the champagne table. Victor himself was another story.

Determined to be a good fiancé (and much to the disappointment of an equally drunk Chris and Mila,) Yuuri had managed to stop Victor from dancing, but he couldn't stop him from blurting out secrets and inappropriate questions.

Clutching a half-full glass of champagne- the other half in a fizzing puddle on the expensive carpet- Victor swung a chair around and dropped into it at the table where an (also slightly pissed) Yuri was sitting with Leo, Guang Hong and Otabek.

"Y'know, Guang Hong, Leo really likes you too. His face goes all...sparkly when you talk to him. You should tell him that you like him-"

Guang Hong started to speak, but Victor cut him off with a wave of his hands. "No, shh, shhh. You _do_ like him, you sparkle too. You should tell him, and then, you should get _married._ Like me and Yuuri, because we're getting married as soon as-"

"As soon as he wins a gold, we know, Victor. You never shut up about it." 

By this point Yuuri had arrived on the scene and was watching the car crash unfolding with utter horror. He buried his head in his hands. "Dear God."

Leo, having bypassed red and gone purple, cleared his throat. "Um, actually... he did do that. Like three years ago."

Victor gasped. "Oh, no. Leo, that's so mean. I thought you liked him, and now you talk about rejecting him like nothing! Poor Guang Hong. Come here, Poor Guang Hong."

Guang Hong leaned away from the offered hug, pink blooming on his cheeks too. "He didn't reject me. We've been together for two and a half years. Um... I thought you all knew."

"Two and a half years? Fuck, you guys don't get much in public, do you?" Yuri was mature enough to admit to himself that even when sober he wasn't the most tactful person in the room. Ever.

"We like to keep it private." Still blushing, Guang Hong offered Leo a small, secret smile, and Leo's face lit up. Though Yuri would never admit it, he could sort of see what Victor meant about them sparkling.


	2. Two Weddings and a Funeral

Despite their public relationship not having the most traditional of starts, anyone can see that Leo and Guang Hong are made for each other. They glow brighter than the September sun behind them as they walk back down the aisle, literally shining with joy.

The red and white roses adorning the chairs and walls pale in comparison with their smiles, but they both turn to an aisle chair and pick a rose for the other- red for Leo, white for Guang Hong. As they turn back to each other, the synchronicity of their ideas and movement make them break into laughter, sharing a smiling kiss.

Nobody deserves it more- a long distance relationship is never easy, and they've made it work, made it flourish, for three years. They've handled only seeing each other on video calls and even endured the painful glimpses during competitions, where they had to see the other as a _threat,_ for their own survival. They've gone through the hardships as one and blossomed into something beautiful, because all that waiting and missing and pain is better together than domestic bliss with anyone else. That's how much they mean to each other.

There are only two people in this world who Yuri loves that much. He steals a glance at the boy sitting next to him, then reprimands himself. Lately, he's been trying not to look at him too often; Otabek has caught him staring one too many times, and every time he does, he looks back down at his book or his phone and does this adorable awkward shuffle in his seat. It leaves Yuri in pieces, a messy heap of emotions wearing a stupid beam. It's hard to be The Russian Punk when you've completely fallen for the most stupidly adorable boy on the planet.

Besides, Victor's been looking at him sideways when he's with Otabek lately. Yuri's not so sure that it's a sudden increase in awareness; it's more likely Katsudon told him. Yuuri himself is too subtle to stare, but he's always noticing tiny things, and most of the time he's right. it's fucking annoying to be honest. So whenever Victor or Yuuri is around, he's been trying to just... not look at Otabek.

Somewhat unsurprisingly, Yuri's ingenious tactic isn't working. At all.

To the people who don't know him and the Yuri's Angels who think they do, Yuri Plisetsky is a mystery, a stormy ocean with an impenetrable surface and hidden depths. 

Fanpages and message forums say he's mysterious and unpredictable, (apparently tired and pissed off is the new desirable,) and the press call him arrogant and reclusive. But they're both wrong. Yuri's face is an open book; the only problem is almost nobody cares enough to read it. 

Anyone even remotely close to Yuri can tell you he's a sarcastic, grumpy little shit with a massive inferiority complex, who is fiercely, _desperately_ in love with Otabek Atin.

Anyone except Otabek Altin.

~

As everyone begins to rise and chatters drift through the room, Yuri shakes off his thoughts and stands, switching on his phone. As he waits for it to turn on, he turns to Otabek, making sure neither Yuuri nor Victor can see his face.

Just as well, really, because Otabek looks fucking gorgeous. It appears to be a law of the universe that absolutely everyone looks good in a suit. He's no exception; the white shirt makes his skin a smooth caramel, his eyes shine honey in the sunset, and the black suit brings out his jawline (not that it needs any help.)

Together with the earring and the crinkly-eyed smile, it's no wonder Yuri is currently finding it hard to form words.

"Yura, you're staring at me."

Yuri hastily looks away. "I'm fucking not." It isn't always adorable little shuffles, but the nickname still makes his heart skip a beat. No doubt he's currently grinning like an idiot.

He checks his phone for an excuse to hide his flush, bending over it so his hair falls into his face. An alarm, two texts from Mila and a message from Mrs Fedorova, the neighbour who checks in on Dedushka.

He scrolls further down. 14 missed calls. All from her.

There's a feeling you get in the moments when you're teetering on the edge of a cliff, the cold wind whipping your hair, and as the gulls overhead shriek in mourning, you overbalance, just a little. Your heart explodes and suddenly your veins are laced with adrenaline. Your body registers you're about to fall before your brain.

Later, Yuri will look back on now as one of those moments. While his mind is blank with shock, his body is screaming.

Soon he will be too.

~

Despite the electric waves of panic flashing along his veins, Yuri is shaking, trembling like a kitten in the cold. His sweaty fingers struggle to enter the passcode, to reach Dedushka as quickly as possible. Maybe if he gets there quickly enough he can snatch Dedushka away from the pain, a tiny avenging angel with a purple and tiger print tie.

Just as his fingers tap the Messages app, a tiny voice whispers in his brain. _What if he never reads it? What if he throws his phone in the Pearl River and goes to live far, far away? Maybe if he never finds out, then it will never have happened. Can he really avoid the news for ever?_

But Yuri Plisetsky loves like an angel, rarely but with a fierce joy. He'll be fire for the people he loves, and if he has to, he'll burn himself to ashes for them. He may be an intrinsically selfish person, but for the few people he loves, he'll self destruct completely.

He'd pushed his body and mind to the limit during last year's Grand Prix Final, been unable to move for hours afterwards. The effect on his body had lasted for weeks, and critics had called it dangerous, said he'd overstretched himself to the point of serious damage. It had been the most painful thing he'd thought he could experience.

It was nothing compared to opening this message,

_Call me, Yuri. Please. It's Nikolai._

His mind shuts down. This isn't happening. Things like this don't _happen_ to his grandfather, to him. For all Yuri's careful decision-making, for all his planning to return to Moscow when the inevitable happens, he isn't ready. He isn't ready. Nikolai might as well be immortal- even when he'd had his most recent heart attack, nine months ago, he'd rung Yuri from the hospital himself.

Yuri'd completely fallen to bits; he took three days off from crucial training to rush to his grandfather, trying not to imagine worst case scenarios all the way to Moscow; _maybe his condition had worsened after the call, maybe the message was pre-recorded, maybe even now he was lying cold in the morgue._ But by the time he'd reached the city, his grandfather was back at home again, making pirozhki in their poky kitchen.

Deep down, Yuri knows this isn't like that. This is the worst thing that could possibly happen, and Yuri isn't ready.

So he bargains with the universe, with whoever is listening. _If I can make it out of the room without passing out, then Dedushka will be fine. If I can reach the seventh row before I start to cry, then this will all be a horrible joke. The sixth row. The fifth..._

He stumbles along the aisle as his body shuts down, barely making it outside before his legs give in and he collapses against the wall of the ballroom, trying desperately to keep it together. He can't breathe around the tears, can't speak, can't feel anything except an overwhelming dread.

It's the hardest thing he's ever done, but, with his control over his own mind starting to disintegrate, dark smoke and whispers slipping through the cracks, he calls Mrs Fedorova.

And his world implodes.

~

Her voice through the phone is crackling enough that he has to strain to hear above his own sobs, but it's clear from her tone that the worst thing, the impossible, has finally happened.

Yuri is completely alone in this harsh world.

Against the cold stone, he curls into a ball, clutching his chest as if he can stop his heart from breaking. Forget his heart; he is breaking. He can feel his whole body, his soul, the parts of him that make him Yuri Plisetsky shattering. 

And there's nothing left. All around him, inside him. He has nothing, is nothing. 

The sobs are making it hard to breathe, and though the sun set a few minutes ago, Yuri's too hot, his tears boiling as they drop to the stone floor. He can feel himself starting to gasp for breath, but he couldn't stop even if he wanted to.

He curls tighter into himself and whimpers, his last thread to composure snapping. He's really gasping now, each breath short and sharp between the piercing sobs. Every inhale is a sharp pain in his chest, like a knife being twisted into his heart.

Dark spots are starting to dance in front of his eyes, black holes stealing his vision. The world is starting to go grey, and Yuri slips further down the wall, knowing with an absolute certainty that he's about to pass out and that there's nothing he can do to prevent it. 

Just as he slips under, a hand lands on his shoulder, and he looks up with ruined eyes.

And then there is Otabek. The one person who has never backed away from Yuri. The one person that he needs now more than ever. The island in the storm. Pale but with his jaw set. 

With a tiny, broken exhale, Yuri clings to him as tight as he can, finally letting himself completely fall apart.

Yuri's grief isn't quiet or personal. As Otabek holds him, he screams like a wounded animal. His wails could be those of a Greek mourner, except that his pain is achingly real. The sounds he's making aren't _human_ \- not that he can even remember what that was like. 

Yuri's face is pressed into Otabek's chest, so he can feel his heart start to pick up the pace. Otabek is scared. "Yura, Yura, what's wrong? You can tell me. It's okay, it's okay, whatever it is, we can fix it, I promise. _Talk_ to me, Yuri." 

Otabek strokes his hair, and Yuri hates himself viciously, because what psycho would be feeling this lovestruck not a minute after the death of their grandfather?

The word death makes it all seem too real, and Yuri is racked by fresh sobs as Otabek's brown eyes fill with terror. He can clearly tell something is seriously wrong, and Yuri knows it's not fair to leave him scared like this, knows he _has_ to tell him what's wrong, but it's almost impossible for him to breathe, let alone speak.

Yuri's starting to choke on his own tears, and his breaths are gurgling. _Death's rattle._ A malevolent whisper in the back of his fevered mind sounds, each word tinged with malice. _Did your grandfather rattle, Yuri? Did he choke? Maybe he asked for you. Maybe he wanted to say goodbye to his grandson. But you weren't there, were you? You were halfway across the world at a wedding, while he lay there in the dark. Alone._

The guilt holds his heart in a vice grip, tighter and tighter and tighter- until it shatters. 

Yuri screams. The sound is hoarse and piercing and filled with grief, and Otabek jolts. Cautiously, he holds him closer, whispering something panicked that Yuri can't hear over his sobs.

The world's going dark again. He keeps slipping in and out of consciousness, clutching onto Otabek like a drowning child. In the brief snatches of sanity, he can see that even level-headed Otabek is really starting to panic. 

"Yuri, please, Yuri- I promise it'll be okay, you just have to tell me what's wrong. Yuri, _please_."

Down the corridor, the door to the ballroom opens, and Victor and Yuuri stroll out, holding hands. As Victor turns his head, he catches sight of the pathetic puddle of tears that is Yuri Plisetsky and sprints towards him. He drops into a crouch next to Yuri, who's locked into the foetal position in Otabek's arms.

"Yuri, okay, oh no, Yuri, what's wrong? Oh god, oh god, Yuri, please stop crying. Oh, fuck, you're not hurt are you? Shit, shit.... Yuuri!"

As Yuri howls even louder, Yuuri arrives on the scene, and pulls Victor out of the way from where he's bending over Yuri, making sure Yuri has enough space. 

He speaks slowly and evenly, making sure Yuri can hear him. "Okay, Yuri, just breathe. You need to breathe- through your nose might be better- deep as you can."

The words don't process. Yuri knows what he's said, but somehow he can't do it. He's a slave to this heartbreak; he can't do anything but ache.

Yuuri reaches over, rubbing circles on Yuri's heaving back. "Is this okay?" 

Yuri nods, trying as hard as he can to follow Yuuri's instructions. It works slightly- his breathing is still fast and shallow, but a lot more even. The sobs are weaker now, but still racking his entire body. 

Victor's well meaning panic had just set him off even more, and Otabek's promises that it would all be okay hadn't been helping- every time he said it he was forcibly reminded that it wouldn't be alright.

That it might never be alright again.

Yuuri's better at calming him down- Yuri thinks that maybe he's done this before. And he doesn't promise a miraculous return to perfection, because he _knows_ that it's impossible; Yuri's seen the photos of Vicchan in Yu-Topia.

Each breath slows Yuri's heart rate, and his adrenalin levels drop steadily until he's worn out, heavy with exhaustion in Otabek's arms and with a headache on the way. He can't even lift his head from where it's propped on Otabek's shoulder. 

"Victor, can you go to the banquet hall and get a big glass of water? Cold as possible. Yuri, do you think you can sit up?"

Yuri nods, taking a shaky breath, and Otabek slowly lets go of him, leaving him a little emptier. 

Miraculously, Yuuri's still completely calm, and he crouches next to Yuri as Victor returns from the banquet hall. It's possible that Victor looks worse than Yuri; his usually pale face is an ashen shade of grey, and his lips are blue.

Yuuri takes Victor's hand as he hands the water to Yuri, covering his fiancé's hand with his own and pressing another soft kiss to his cheek. Somehow he's managing to comfort them both while staying perfectly calm, effortlessly reassuring.

Yuri's teeth clatter against the glass as he drinks it. The water is ice cold, dampening the hellfire of grief in his heart a little. More deep breaths.

Yuuri sits back on his heels, still rubbing Yuri's back. "Can you tell us what's wrong? You don't have to, just take your time."

Yuri drains the glass and sniffs, wiping the back of his hand against his tearstained face. He doesn't trust himself to speak; he thinks saying it aloud might kill him. 

So he takes his phone from his pocket, barely noticing that it's cracked sometime in the last ten minutes.

He hands the phone showing the text to Yuuri, feeling pathetic for not even being able to obey his simple request to speak. Yuuri's eyes widen, and he passes the phone to Victor, his face serious. "We'll be here when you need us."

Victor drops into a crouch next to Yuri. "We promise."

Hovering a few feet away, Otabek nods.

~

Victor and Yuuri insist Yuri misses the reception, and walk him back to the hotel. Otabek asks to come with them, but Victor insists he should go and enjoy the party, if only to break the news to their closest friends. Yuuri isn't so sure, but he keeps silent, and Yuri's too out of it to voice his fear of being left alone.

(Otabek doesn't say that he won't be able to relax for weeks after what he saw today. The vision of Yuuri knowing exactly what to do while he stands helpless will paint the inside of his eyelids for a long time.)

The couple are surprisingly good with him; when his legs are about to collapse beneath him and he has to sit on a bench and bury his head in his hands, they stop without hovering or making a fuss. 

He almost passes out with exhaustion in the middle of the deserted lobby, and they loop his arms around their shoulders and walk him to his room without acknowledging that he couldn't do it himself. 

Just as he's staggering down the final stretch of luxurious carpet his knees buckle and he falls agains the door of room 57, pulling Yuuri sideways. It crashes open with a resounding bang, and Yuri is flown at by a furious Spanish woman of around eighty. Her voice is harsh in the cool hotel silence, and she's right up in his face. He's too out of it to notice or even care as spit sprays at his cheeks. She seems fully ready to tackle him, and though usually he'd have to be held back by Yuuri at this point, his head is spinning. All he wants is sleep. 

He knows he's standing in front of him, screeching, but he can't quite see her. She sounds miles away, yelling at him through a mist of exhaustion. He blinks slowly, and the fog lifts a little. From what little shrieked Spanish he can make out in his clouded mind, she's some relative of Leo's.

Victor hands her 300 yuan, and Yuuri attempts an apology in surprisingly coherent Spanish. Slightly mollified, she shuffles back inside the room, grumbling quietly. Luckily for Yuri's headache, she misses the finger Victor sticks up at her behind her back. 

They turn away, acting as though saving him from violent Mexican grandmothers is an everyday occurence; neither of them say a word all the way to the hotel room.

And he's unbelievably grateful. 

Yuri Plisetsky hates accepting help. His frequent explanation is that if you need help in the first place, you've lost. And he doesn't lose.

Except for today. Today, he's lost everything.

So they help him when he can't stand, make sure he has water and a sick bowl and their numbers, and sit on the sofa while he drifts off to sleep, curled up like a child and tiny in the enormous bed. And they do all of it while pretending they aren't, because Yuri's pride is moments from shattering. And then he'll have nothing left.

They're careful with his cracked mind, and the hotel room is almost manageable when they're filling it with affection.

But when he wakes up at three, and has almost a minute of blissful ignorance before he remembers the ugly truth, the room is hot and dark, and he cries until the sun dyes the edges of the curtains.

~

"I don't like letting you do this on your own, but if you're sure..." Yuuri's face is worried, practically glowing with parental angst in the sun outside Beijing Daxing International Airport.

Victor checks his Rolex. "It's nearly ten. I got you the best hotel in Moscow, I'll text you the details. Call us whenever, okay? At least one of us will be free." Victor, holding Yuuri's hand, folds Yuri into a tight hug, dragging his fiancé into the embrace. 

Yuri struggles free after a few seconds, rolling his eyes and trying to pretend he's not crying. 

He turns to Otabek, and there's a pregnant pause before Yuri throws his arms around his neck and buries his face in his shoulder.

Victor, Yuuri and Otabek had all wanted to come to Moscow, for support, but Yuri'd asked them not to. He feels like this is something he has to do by himself, and besides, the image of them standing in suits beside him brings back painful memories.

Eventually, Yuri steps back. He takes a deep breath, trying to stop it from shaking, and lifts a hand in an unsure farewell. His army boots clomp against the pavement, and Victor wonders if they weigh more than the boy wearing them. 

He watches Yuri disappear into the bright, artificial depths of the airport. He looks so small and lost, so alone, but his narrow shoulders are braced. The sight makes Victor's heart clench painfully.

He turns to Yuuri, who has a bittersweet smile on his face, and takes his hand. Yuuri twines his fingers through his absentmindedly, still gazing after Yuri. He's smiling, but his eyes are soulful and sad, and Victor can tell he's trying to put a brave face on the situation until Yuri's completely out of sight; being sixteen is hard enough. Flying back to Moscow alone is hard enough. Having to leave your friends just when you need them most is hard enough.

Having to leave the boy you love? That can kill you. 

And Victor should know.

~

The flight is pretty bad, and he's sure that if it wasn't for Victor's insistence that he have a first class seat, it would be a lot worse. The first class section is almost empty, but the back of the plane would have killed him. It's full of loving families, smiling couples. A few hours into the flight, he walks up and the aisle to stretch his legs, and even though the babies are now screaming, the couples bickering, it's still like a knife to the heart.

He sees one girl who's been ignoring her boyfriend both times he passed her, and thinks about how stupid she is. This plane could crash, right now. Her boyfriend could die in a car accident when they get to Moscow. He could have an allergic reaction to the free peanuts. He could die of an untreated brain tumour. And then guess what? She'd never see him again. Because that's how it works. The last thing she'd have done was ignore him, and she'll never get the chance to change that. Never.

She must notice him glaring at her, because she scowls. "What are you looking at?" 

He says nothing, walks on. It's a sweet relief when his leg stops cramping and he can go and sit in his cold, empty first class seat in this cold, empty first class section. He stares out of the window, trying to drown out his thoughts with angry music.

He touches down in St Petersburg at 9pm Russian time. He'd thought the flight was bad, but nothing had prepared him for the torture of Arrivals.

Every time a parent, exhausted from the long flight or the hours waiting at the airport, sweeps their child into the air and spins them around, Yuri's heart cracks a little more. Every time a couple kiss, young and passionate or old and gently smiling, he's bent over a little more by the weight of grief.

And when a boy of around eight, swamped by a duffel coat, charges towards a tall old man and barrels into his legs as the old man complains about his knees, Yuri's painfully reminded of the Rostelecom Cup. He locks himself in a bathroom cubicle and cries for an hour, as quietly as he can.


	3. Two Weddings and a Funeral

He emerges red-eyed and quiet, and maybe with a sense of what Yuuri was feeling after the GPF two years ago. Victor's texted him a taxi booking, as well as one for two nights in the Four Seasons Hotel.

The taxi driver is passive-aggressive throughout the entire journey about having to wait for him, but Yuri only plugs in his headphones and stares out the window. The old him would have bitten the guy's head off, but he's just so deeply tired. It's an effort to climb the hotel's sweeping front steps and confirm his booking to the snooty receptionist, but when he gets to his room and sinks into the enormous bed, his eyes won't close, and he stares at the ceiling all night.

Yuri doesn't so much wake up as roll over at around six a.m with a vaguely clearer mind. He reaches over to where his phone is charging. Victor's texted him three times, each with a clearer hint of panic. Yuuri's message is calmer, asking how he's getting on in Moscow. There's also an email from an undertaker that Yuri decides he can't face without coffee. He rings room service, answers Victor and Yuuri's texts while the coffee arrives, then drinks it as he reads the email.

_Dear Mr Plisetsky,_

_Vasiliev & Co. would like to offer their condolences at the demise of Nikolai Plisetsky, and suggest you make an appointment at some point during the following day to discuss funeral arrangements. _

_Respectfully,_

_Maxim Vasiliev_

_Vasiliev & Co. Funeral Coordinators_

_Moscow_

Fuck coffee, he should have ordered something stronger. He gets dressed in a sluggish, sleep-deprived daze and orders a taxi to take him to the address listed. He stares out of the window at the identical grey buildings under the steely in this monochrome city, and arrives at the funeral parlour in what seems like a few seconds.

Time is funny when you're only half awake- and his other half is on a completely different plane of reality.

The funeral parlour would be a nondescript building if not for the funeral accessories in the windows. Yuri feels like there's something disturbing about having the trappings of death on show like this, but he ignores the idea and pushes open the door anyway.

He's greeted by a tall, gaunt man with ashy skin and deep shadows under his eyes. If you'd told Yuri the man was one of his own corpses, he wouldn't have been too surprised. His personality's disturbingly similar, too; his voice is an almost inaudible monotone, and he's bowed twice, muttering pointless condolences, before Yuri's even through the door.

Waiting in the dark, plush depths of the funeral parlour is what Yuri would imagine would happen if you put the taller man in a hydraulic press. He wrings his plump, grey hands and dips his head. "My condolences, Mr Plisetsky. Maxim Vasiliev." 

There are beads of cold sweat glimmering on his receding hairline. Yuri feels sick. They both look _dead._

Yuri already feels like that inside. Maybe if he stays here long enough, he'll turn into these men. Spending his days in the close darkness, the greatest excitement in his life being the death of a rich old woman who ordered an extravagant funeral. A vulture. 

He's filled with a surge of loathing, but swallows down his revulsion. He's doing this for Dedushka, nobody else, so he's just got to stay here, no matter how much his skin crawls.

The taller man offers a clammy hand. "Alexei Vasiliev. I'm sorry for your loss."

He takes it, trying not to retch. The room smells like dead things, and Yuri wonders if the scent is coming from the two men. "Thank you. You said in the email he'd left instructions?"

"Ah, yes. This is rather unorthodox, but he planned the entire funeral himself, two months prior to his death. There was a letter enclosed in his will addressed to you explaining things."

"Wha- Really? Do you have it?" Yuri could kick himself for how pathetically desperate he sounds.

Maxim hands him an envelope, and he practically snatches it. Yuri turns away from the undertakers to read it, his hands shaking. This could be the last time he'll ever hear his grandfather's voice ring clear in his mind, see his careful italics tinge the paper with love. He doesn't want it to be in front of two half-dead misers who stare at the will like it's gold.

His fingers tremble on the fine paper.

_My brave Yuratchka,_

_If you're reading this, then by now I've passed on. It won't be long now. It feels surreal, knowing I can't have much time left- at your age I thought I was invincible, and I'm sure you feel the same way about yourself. I wish more than anything that we were both right._

_You've become so strong, so fierce, Yuri, but you're still a boy. It's not fair to make a teenager plan his grandfather's funeral, so I have taken care of the important details for you. You don't need to make any of the hard choices- this will be hard enough for you as it is- but it is for you to decide whether you want to invite your mother._

_If you truly need her there then you can ask her to come, but you've thrived without her being there for you, and I don't want her to change that. Still, I'm aware we've the only family you have, and with me gone you'll need someone by your side. Invite her- or make a new family to stand by you. It's your choice._

_I can imagine you scowling as you read this, kotenok, but legally you are still a child. I've tried as hard as I can to find you a guardian that will help you thrive. They've agreed to foster you until you turn eighteen, and although you may not like it at first, I know that they'll make you blossom into the great man I know you're going to become._

_I think it would be best if you stayed in St Petersburg- Moscow will hold you down. I know you, Yuri, and I know that if you stay in Moscow, the ghost of me will keep you back. I don't want to be responsible for that. The details of your are with Kuznetsov & Lebedev (the St Petersburg branch) along with another letter. _

_I do all this because I love you, Yuratchka. I love you so much. Never forget that._

_Dedushka._

The paper is stained with tears when Yuri is finished, and he wipes his eyes furiously.

_I love you too, Dedushka. I'll die before I stop missing you._

Maxim reaches a pudgy hand into his pocket for a handkerchief, but draws back as he sees Yuri's glare. "I trust that clears everything up, Sir."

"Yes. Could... could I keep this?"

"Well, it's not-"

_"Please."_

The two men exchange looks. "Of course, sir."

He scans the funeral arrangements; a quiet ceremony, only for the people that really mattered. Yuri's desperate to leave, but he has to make just one change first- something Dedushka would have liked, but never have done.

As Yuri steps out of the shop, it's raining; the world is crying with him.

~

Dedushka thinks he's strong, but Yuri's dying inside, completely beaten down. He can't build himself a family when he can barely stand. 

He's been calling himself an orphan since he was old enough to understand the word. He's moved schools, cities, rinks and coaches more times than he can count. He didn't have a best friend for the first fifteen years of his life.

But none of that ever mattered, because somewhere, no matter how far away, Dedushka was on his side. He was never alone as long as an old man waited for him in Sheremetyevo Arrivals.

And all that is gone now. Yuri Plisetsky is utterly alone in the world.

So, breaking a little more, he sends an invite to his mother's address.

~

The funeral is at two the next day. In the soulless hotel room, Yuri puts on the only suit he owns, albeit not with the purple shirt and smudged eyeliner he'd had at the wedding. His reflection in the gilt-edged mirror looks small and pale, his eyes hollow. He looks a little hungover, maybe recovering from flu. He doesn't look like someone dying of grief. And maybe it's a good thing, a way to appear strong and together, but if his reflection showed what he was feeling inside, then he'd be looking into the eyes of a corpse.

He walks through the grey streets of Moscow, against the tide of business people, until the church looms over him. It's their local church, the one his grandfather used to drag him to every Sunday until he moved to St Petersburg. He hasn't set foot in a church since. 

As he pushes open the gate to the carefully mantained churchyard, the question that had been flipping circles around his exhausted mind all night echoes again.

_Will she be there?_

He isn't entirely sure what he wants the answer to be. 

As he pushes open the door to the church, Mrs Fedorova is there waiting, but as he looks around, Yuri can't see the woman he's waiting for. she places a wrinkly, reassuring hand on Yuri's shoulder. "I am so sorry, Yuri."

Even in his newly numb state, he hates it when people say that. They hadn't killed Dedushka- he doesn't think anyone could have. Yuri's grandfather was undefeated- except by total cardiac arrest. A guttural sob rises in his throat, and he gives her a curt nod, about to walk on when she says "I should have checked sooner, I should have called him... two days he was there. I'm so sorry."

"...What?" Yuri's blood is rushing in his ears, the familiar rage rising in his gut. Mrs Fedorova takes a few steps back. _That's why she's sorry?Ohmygodohmygodohfucknononono._ Two days... "I thought I told you on the call?"

"The..the connection was bad, I didn't hear all of it!"

She claps a hand over her mouth. "Oh, Yuri, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to break the news like this." He can't hear her properly over the anger raging in his brain. His vision is shaking with fury, as is his body, but it's so much better than the emptiness of the last few days. Yuri's in his element- he spends most of his time being a tiny ball of caffeine and rage anyways.

But deep down, he knows it's not fair to take it out on Mrs Fedorova. He grits his teeth and spits out the words, but she takes his excuses at face value as he heads to the bathroom and locks the door, something he's been doing a lot lately, and braces his hands on the sink. His shoulders are tensed (shit, his whole body is tense) as he glares at his reflection in the mirror, strands of blond hair falling into his face. 

The Yuri staring back at him is shattered as he throws himself, fist first, into the mirror. Again and again, over and over. The tinkle of glass on the floor isn't enough to cool his anger, though, and he batters the mirror with a feral rage until his knuckles drip crimson and his shoulders are heaving. 

Just as quickly as the anger came, it's gone. And he's left empty, surrounded by shards of bloodstained glass that shine in the watery sun.

~

The funeral's just about to start when Yuri takes his place in the front row. He tries not to look up from his programme, because the open casket's right there and he thinks he might be sick. 

He can just see the rise of his grandfather's stomach over the edge of the casket after he finally looks up, and he wonders who bathed and dressed the body- usually it would have been the family, and Yuri's indescribably grateful that it wasn't him.

The thought of family makes him twist around. 

He can't quite remember what his mother looks like, but even so, she's clearly not here- the youngest mourner is around seventy.

He turns back to the front, not quite sure what he's feeling, only that it hurts like hell.

The funeral passes in a dizzy blur of mournful hymns and black clothes. All he can remember is that the priest, one of Dedushka's closest friends, almost breaks down during the ceremony. Yuri wonders detachedly what he's feeling, a man whose job is to oversee the landmarks of existence - christenings, weddings and then funerals, impersonal lives passing under his hands every day until one day it's your grandchild you're christening, your niece you're watching get married. Your friend you're burying.

When it's time to lay the flowers on the body, Yuri feels his knees buckle as he takes a stilted step towards the thing that used to his grandfather. He's handed twelve white lilies from the priest, and he drops them as quickly as he can, making sure his back is turned so that nobody can see his eyes are shut.

He won't let the last memory he has of his grandfather's face be the features of a corpse.

The slow procession to the graveyard, full of tears and condolences, makes Yuri realise numbly that all the way through the funeral he hasn't cried. Not once.

As he tosses coins and dirt onto the casket, he thinks he should probably feel something. A finality, maybe, or a sense of closure. But there's nothing, and he's not sure what that means.

He's not sure about anything these days.

~

People surround him at the wake, offering him blini and condolences, and he despises every second of it. It's strangely reassuring- everything else in his life turned on its head five days ago, but his hatred of small talk is a universal constant.

Yuri slumps down on a plush church bench with a glass of something not strong enough, and takes the letter out of his pocket to read. It's a guilty pleasure; the more he reads it, the quicker it will fall apart. This is the tenth time he's read it since yesterday. He hates himself.

Suddenly, the realization hits him that he doesn't have to stay here, where the walls press in on him and old ladies spray his face with spit as they talk. He can leave. So he does.

He snatches his suit jacket from the peg, wraps a long patchwork scarf (made with good intentions but questionable skill by the Nishigori triplets) around his neck, and pushes open the doors.

He makes his way through the graveyard, disturbed at the utter silence. The only noise is his breathing, and when a crow caws from the church roof, he nearly has a heart attack- poor choice of words, Yuri. He could almost laugh.

The sky arching above him is a bleak grey as he walks along the winding path of this garden of death. To the left of the gates, Dedushka's grave is in a rare patch of sunlight. There's a bunch of chrysanthemums on the dirt- Yuri thinks maybe he remembers the priest laying them there.

The headstone reads;

NIKOLAI PLISETSKY

1938-2017

and underneath, Yuri's addition;

LOVED

He kneels in front of the grave, stroking a shaking finger along his grandfather's name. And finally, finally he cries. His tears mingle with the dirt, and he wonders if, underneath him, Dedushka can feel his agony.

He stays there, crying quietly, until the sun goes down.

~

Midnight walks in Moscow aren't exactly a good idea for a skinny sixteen year old who will never be taller than 5'5", but Yuri's past caring. 

Though the buildings are all shut up and silent, and the air is bitingly cold, he can still navigate the area with ease. The only noise in the world is his echoing footsteps as his feet take over and his mind empties until he finds himself outside his grandfather's house.

He still has a key. It's hard to imagine this is the last time he'll fit it in the lock, give it that little twist to the right until the door swings open and Dedushka calls his name from the kitchen.

The key jams. 

On closer inspection, it's not the same lock at all. They changed the fucking locks? It's been five days. Don't they have any respect?! He kicks the door, his heavy boots making a dent in the neatly painted wood. Again, again. Maybe he'll kick the fucking door in himself-

The door opens and he's greeted by an unwashed man of around 50, flab bulging through the holes in his string vest. He's clearly been drinking, and just as Yuri's about to wrinkle his nose in disgust, he sees the flash of metal in the bastard's sweaty hand.

He gets the fuck out of there.

Once he's out of sight, he makes his winding way back to the hotel. Yuri knows this part of Moscow blindfolded, and right now he has the streetlamps and stars on his side. 

He passes the ballet studio where Dedushka picked him up and dropped him off so diligently every Saturday, the bakery where they'd eat illegal pryanik after those same classes, the park where they'd had snowball fights. Nikolai never, never let Yuri win. And Yuri hadn't wanted him to.

When he gets back to the hotel, Yuri practically collapses onto his bed. He's asleep before his head hits the pillow, and he sleeps through the night. 

When he wakes the next morning, the serenity's gone; his neck aches, and though he knows he's had a nightmare, he can't remember what it was, and the chilling feeling stays with him all morning.

~

Yuri's flight to St Petersburg is at ten, and as he waits in the queue, he thinks detachedly about how his life has become an endless cycle of expensive hotels, plane flights and well-meaning words that destroy him inside. Yuri's current existence is pretty similar to what Victor's life was like pre-Yuuri. 

He's never been more grateful to have Otabek, Mila, even Victor and Yuuri themselves, because four days of this has nearly broken him. Victor did this for ten years, and came out the other end still smiling. 

If he knew how Yuuri felt after the GPF at the end of the flight to St Petersburg, now he realises what Victor was going through.

He knows who he feels most sorry for.

~

When he lands in St Petersburg, he has to admit he's expecting everyone to be there. But, of course, the Russian team are training. The only person waiting for him in Arrivals is the one that matters most.

When Yuri steps off of the plane to see Otabek standing there biting his perfect lips with internalised worry, hands in the pocket of his soft leather jacket, his shattered heart knits back together again, just a bit.

"Beka!"

"Yuri! Are you alright? I-"

His words are cut off by Yuri sprinting at him, his shoulder catching Otabek in the ribs. He clings on like a monkey, burying his head in Otabek's shoulder. He's warm and solid and everything Yuri's been needing, and the flood of life that coursed through him when he saw Beka standing in Arrivals made him want to live his own a little more.

His voice is muffled by the leather. "I missed you."

And he had. So fucking much. He hadn't realised it, exactly, until he got off the plane and saw Otabek standing there and was filled with so many emotions that really the only options were either this or to kiss him as hard as he could, until their lips were bruised. Yuri accepts that the second idea might have had a few problems.

Otabek speaks into his hair. "I missed you, too. How did you get on, in Moscow?"

"It was.. as good as it could possibly have been."

Otabek picks up on the way Yuri's voice catches, and sighs. "I'm sorry you had to do that alone, Yura. I would have come with you-"

"I know."

He does, actually. Otabek Altin and Yuri Plisetsky would follow each other into Hell and back out again. Yuri takes a step back, looking up at Otabek. 

Yuri hates the saying 'every cloud has a silver lining,' In his opinion, when life throws you a cloud, you should be allowed to wallow in self-pity while eating Ben & Jerry's, not have to try and look for some bullshit upside. 

He hates this whole fucking situation. He's breaking what should feel like good news, but the reason behind it means that every time he walks along the Neva, goes to his favourite bakery, he'll be painfully reminded of why he's here. The whole city's been tarred with grief. The whole fucking world.

"I'm staying here, Beka. Dedushka organised someone to be my guardian in St Petersburg, and I'm staying here, I'm not going anywhere, I don't have to switch coaches or rinks or teammates or anything and... and basically they all just wasted a party."

He smiles as he speaks, but even while he does he knows it's pointless. Otabek can see through him in a second. They've learnt each other's mannerisms, what they love and what they hate. Beka's known Yuri can't accept help from day one. 

And now is not the time for an intervention. He's not sure Yuri could take it, so he plays along, reacts like it's good news. But he sees the cracked light behind Yuri's green eyes, and his own heart aches in response.

"Yura, if I didn't know better, I'd say you would have missed Yakov and your rinkmates," says Otabek, raising an eyebrow.

"Shut the fuck up. I would not. It's just more convenient to stay here."

"Sure. Convenient."

"I told you to shut up!" But he's laughing. For the first time since the wedding.

~

"So who is this mystery guardian?" They're walking from the airport in the general direction of Kuznetsov & Lebedev, Law Firm. 

Treat it like a game, a fun mystery. Not Yuri's future. The skater's not great at talking about the important things either, so Otabek keeps it light. He's trying to distract Yuri from the heartbreak.

"I don't actually know yet- they arranged an appointment at some law firm this afternoon to meet me and so I can read Dedushka's other letter." Yuri waves the first letter and the phone showing the law firm's email in Otabek's face.

It had arrived when they touched down, and Yuri had read it immediately- it was from the St Petersbug branch of Kuznetsov & Lebedev, and mentioned an appointment for twelve thirty- he'll have to go there straight from the airport- as well as another "document" from his grandfather.

Yuri's in pieces with need to see the letter. He can't bring himself to care too much about his guardian- he'd lived in Yakov's annexe for six years without having to like the man, and this is only two. It'll probably be some ex-coach or choreographer his grandfather knew- but with every passing second, the need to hear his grandfather's quiet voice, to read words he hadn't already scanned dozens of times, gets more painful, and he's sure that if they don't have it he'll kill somebody.

"How long will the appointment take? I can wait outside."

"It can't be that long, can it? I mean, here's your new mum, here's your letter, off you go- doesn't take much time."

Otabek snorts. "I'll wait at the rink. Watch Mila practice her quad Salchow."

 _I'mnotjealousI'mnotjealousI'mnotjealousdon'tsayanythingjustkeepquiet_ \- "The hag? What do you want to watch _her_ for?"

_Fuck._

"She asked me for help, Yuri. I said I would help her."

Yuri smarts with self-loathing. "Oh, ok. Wicked."

He's never said wicked in his life.

~

They split paths down the street from the law firm, and though Yuri knows he's not allowed, he wishes Otabek could be there. He's tired of things he has to do alone.

"Well, then, good luck. I hope that, whoever they are, they let you come and visit me."

"I hope so too."

That's another thing Yuri loves about Otabek; to him, words are precious. He doesn't so much choose each word as have the perfect thing to say spill out of his mouth, with no ums and ahs. It's maybe only in Yuri's eyes that whatever Otabek's saying is the perfect thing to say, but still.

Watching him go to see Mila, dark hair ruffled by the wind, Yuri's heart contracts, and he's overcome by a wave of fierce love.

He won't be getting over that any time soon.

Sighing over the mess his life has become, Yuri pushes open the doors to the law firm.

The room is well lit and painted white, and a motherly looking receptionist motions him to sit down amongst the house plants in the waiting area.

"Mr Plisetsky?"

"Yeah."

"Perfect." She types for a few seconds. "Ms Kuznetsova will be along in a few minutes."

Yuri bounces his knees, feeling incongrous and travel-weary amongst the spotless furniture. A young, dark haired woman in a suit walks smartly along the corridor, heels sinking into the soft carpet.

"Mr Plisetsky?"

"...Yeah."

"If you'll come this way." She leads him into a side room with navy walls and a modern-looking desk and chair set made of a light wood.

"Mr Kuznetsov was your...father?"

"That's right. I took over after Mr Lebedev retired, and we've made a few renovations. You've just come from your grandfather's funeral in Moscow, correct? We have his final letter to you here, as well as his appointed guardian for you."

"Wait, final?"

"Yes."

It hurts, Yuri has to admit, that this is the final letter. He'd entertained the fantasy of there being many more, ones for birthdays, for Christmas, for every landmark and milestone. If he can hear his grandfather's voice, feel his love, when it matters the most, then it won't matter that Yuri can't see him.

But things like that only happen in books or movies. This is real life, and he just has to make the most of the two he has.

"You can meet your new guardian first, and then once that's sorted out, we'll give you the letter."

"Can't I have the letter first?" He knows he sounds like a brat, but really. He doesn't give a shit about his new guardian; it's a roof over his head and a meal before he goes to the rink. He just wants to see his grandfather in his mind again, the clear picture of him that Yuri only has when he reads the old man's words.

"Your grandfather stated it had to be this way round. Anna, can you bring them in?" She sticks her head around the door and calls the plump receptionist, who nods.

Yuri notices a manila folder on the desk, and, while Ms Kuznetsova's back is turned, he tries to reach for it. Yuri's always been someone who just can't leave anything alone, and a strange envelope is no exception. It could be the letter, and he's waited long enough to read it. He leans over the desk as the lawyer turns her back, and his fingers are just about to brush the paper when the door opens.

"Yuri, meet your new guardians."

And Victor and Yuuri walk in.


	4. Two Weddings and a Funeral

"Wha...what? What the fuck?! What are you doing here?"

"Told you he'd take it like this." says Yuuri, nudging Victor. 

"Yuri, Victor and Yuuri are your legal guardians. They were appointed by your grandfather back in February."

Yuri wonders if this is what it's like to have an out-of-body experience.

" _February?!_ Then you knew this whole time! And you didn't think to _tell_ me?!"

Victor reaches towards him, and instinctively Yuri cringes away. He can see the hurt in Victor's eyes, hurt that, as usual, he put there, but he's shaking with rage. He hates people keeping secrets from him, lying to him, and this is a pretty fucking huge secret.

"Give me my fucking letter." He turns to Ms Kuznetsova, his tone final.

"I hardly think that that's appropriate language-"

" _Give me my fucking letter, now!_ "

She crosses her arms and goes to stand next to Victor and Yuuri. "No."

"So that's how it is." The three adults look determined, but Yuri's not giving up that easily. He grits his teeth, taking deep breaths. The last shreds of his dignity are screaming at him not to do what he's about to.

" _Please._ " 

She glances momentarily at the envelope on the desk. "Yuri, you're not in the appropriate emotional state-"

_That's it. That's the letter._

Her words are cut off as he dives across the desk to the envelope. He twists in midair over the glossy surface, and scoops up the envelope. His feet meet the floor with a subconscious flourish, and he could almost laugh- the last piece of him, the skater, is still there.

And he'll use it to escape this close room. Panting, he glares at them over the desk, Victor blocking the door with crossed arms and lost eyes. Nobody speaks. The only sound in the room is Yuri's anger and the couple's grief, so intense you can almost hear it.

Victor uncrosses his arms and extends his hands. Pleading. God, Yuri feels sick. Victor doesn't _beg._ "Yuri, stay. Please. We can talk things through, together." 

Yuuri takes Victor's hands, pressing a kiss to his knuckles. The sight hurts like a bitch, and Yuri doesn't even know why. "We told you we'd be here for you when you needed us, didn't we?"

"I don't fucking need you, _get out of the way!_ "

"I'm sorry, Yuri, but I'm not doing to do that." Yuuri puts a hand on Victor's shoulder, comforting him, and Yuri feels totally alone. Victor and Yuuri have each other. So do Yakov and Lilia. Mila has Sara. Even the fucking lawyer is wearing an engagement ring.

What does Yuri have? A soul-wrecking crush he'll never be brave enough to make a move on. 

And thanks to the lawyer, he isn't even here. Yuri's stuck in a room where the walls are rapidly pressing on him, surrounded by people who assume they know what's best for him, and the one person who could make it even slightly bearable is gone.

All three of them are against him.

Yuri knows what he has to do.

"Fine. I'll stay." Victor's shoulders relax, and Yuuri's eyes clear. They move away from the doorway. 

"Thank you, Yuri-" He barrels past them and through the door. 

He sprints through the stylish corridors of the law firm with a terrible ache building in his chest, getting worse every time he goes the wrong way. His movements are getting more frantic as the very corridors warp and turn around his body, swallowing him. 

The very building itself seems malicious, radiates betrayal and lies, and it's such a sweet fucking relief when he's brought up short in the sunshine of the waiting room. He darts through the glass door shoulder first, leaving an ugly crack down the middle and making sure to give the finger to the startled receptionist.

~

Yuri's whole body is alive with betrayal. He doesn't think he's ever been this angry; they've been keeping his own future from him for a whole seven fucking months. He's the one person who had a right to know, and the only one left in the dark.

But even now, he can't be angry at his grandfather. He misses him too much. 

So Victor and Yuuri get the blame, whether that's fair or not. _Who else knew? Who else lied to him? Yakov, Mila, Lilia? Maybe even Otabek- no._ Otabek would never keep anything from him. Beka is the one person he's completely sure of.

But still, what was Dedushka thinking? Yuri knows full well there's only one way to find out. but there's so much rage flooding through him that he tears the precious paper of the letter as he opens it. Cursing himself, his eyes fly hungrily over the words.

_Yuri,_

_If the lawyers have done what I asked, then you've met your guardians by now. I can only imagine what you're feeling, but knowing you, Yuratchka, you're angry. Grieving. You need someone right now. You need familiarity, safety, comfort. A family. You might not think it, but trust me, now is the time to not be alone._

_My choice of guardian, I think, was a good one. You've known Victor since you left Moscow, and though I know you've only known his fiance for a year or so, I trust Victor. I trust his judge of charcter. And anyone can tell what Victor would say about Katsuki Yuuri's character._

_I know you complain about Victor and Yuuri, but when you do, your eyes smile a little. My grumpy kotenok would never admit it, but you do love them, and you love pretending that you don't._

_They're fully prepared to raise you, and even though you may not like the thought of it, I think you would hate a stranger's love more. They will take good care of you, help you to move on. One day they'll be there with you when you remember me and smile. I hope than anything that day comes soon, Yuratchka._

_And that is why this is my final letter. Each one of these is a crutch, and I think deep down you do know that- if you keep clinging to my ghost, how will you live a full life?_

_It's your time to live. Don't be held back by me, for I can't think of anything that would make me feel worse. Live out loud, Yuri. Do things you wouldn't normally do. Laugh, take risks, koneko. (Please, not too many Yuri, I may be dead but I can still be stressed in heaven!)_

_You are so brave, so strong. You are the best thing I've created and I love you with all of my being. It's your life now, Yuri. Make the most of it._

_Dedushka._

And now, finally, _finally,_ the rage towards his grandfather comes flooding in. So much that his head is screaming, his whole body electric with anger. How _dare_ he? How dare he assume he can see inside Yuri's head, leave him stuck with people he never wanted and a life he's starting to not want either? How dare he tell Yuri to live boldly when he's the reason he can't? 

How dare he _leave._

His hands are ripping up the letter before he knows what he's doing, and as the pieces flutter like dead leaves to the damp ground, he thinks he should probably be sad. Maybe he should be trying to be 'at peace' like the stupid bitch who taught Mila's short-lived yoga classes.

He's not. He's angry, and he fucking deserves to be. 

Passersby in suits give him startled glances as he throws his head back and screams his rage to the grey sky. They're all grey faced carbon copies to him, the epitome of the waste of human life that is the commuter. And to them, he's just another teenager. (He doubts the identical fat men slumping past him caught the Grand Prix Final in between beers.) Maybe he's on drugs. Maybe he's been dumped. Perhaps he's drunk.

God, Yuri wishes.

Everyone around him kept him in the dark for a full seven months about something that only he really needed to know. Every single one of those assholes lied to his face with a dazzling smile. There's only one person left in his life who hasn't betrayed him, but he's clearly more interested in Mila. She'd never even look at him; her head is full of Sara. And all the while Yuri's right there, speechless with love and the fear of acknowledging it.

Somehow, he's not crying; the heat of his anger seems to have finally dried up his tears.

It can't burn away the grief, though- to do that he'd have to turn back time, forget the events of the past week. It's no use; however much he'd like it, however much he _needs_ it right now, the human mind can't forget on command. It keeps the memories for another day, to make you smile or to make you cry.

Fine. If he can't forget by himself, he'll try another way.

~

The air of the club is sweet, thick with the scent of overpriced drinks and sweat. The crowd jumps as one, sweat shining on every face, dozens of pairs of eyes blown wide with drugs. The strobe lights catch on a head of golden hair, and Yuri's blinded for a second. 

The music is loud and aggressive, but he doesn't care. The heat of the club, the drugs coursing through his veins, the feel of strange skin moving against his... all of it's making him feel more alive than he has since the funeral. 

Fuck everyone. He doesn't need them, doesn't need anyone. Right now he's on too many drugs to give a shit, and it's _wonderful._

With the forgetfulness comes a perfect artificial happiness, and he raises his arms and moves to the deafening beat, completely blissed out. Around him are the friends he made at the start of the night; they'll be gone before the sun rises. It's the perfect arrangement, in his opinion; if they don't know you they can't hurt you. The sea of flashing neon faces around him moves dizzily, each the same. An elbow catches him in the back, and he spins, graceful despite the alcohol, raising his face to the sky and smiling at the shifting ceiling that blocks the starlight.

Another turn swings his head around, and his gaze drops from the skies. 

Across the club, Otabek's dark eyes meet his.

He's still against the background of dancing bodies, still in his training clothes. Yuri can't hear the music over the roaring in his ears. It's impossible to pretend he doesn't need anyone when the boy he needs more than anything is standing right there.

And suddenly he's sober again. Suddenly he's heartbroken again.

Otabek realises Yuri's crying before he does. 

The crowd surges as the beat drops, and Otabek pushes each of them away as he reaches out for Yuri. It's like he's parting the fucking sea. He's beautiful. He's everything. 

And all Yuri can do in response is sob.

Otabek is immune to the drunk dancers' gazes- his eyes aren't leaving Yuri's. His skin is freezing as he takes Yuri's wrist, and begins to lead him out of the poisonous confusion of the club and into the silence of the night.

~

The crying doesn't ease once they're in the courtyard of the club. If anything it's worse- he could ignore it when there was so much else going on in the club, but in the silence of the night, it's the only thing he can hear.

Otabek's face is a heartbreaking mixture of anger and concern. "Yuri. How are you feeling?"

People always ask him that, and he's always crying too hard to reply. It's all he can do to shrug, a half nod that at least tells Otabek he isn't dying. Not on the outside.

"Then what the _fuck_ were you thinking? Mila and Victor are freaking out, and you _know_ Yuuri. He's practically on the verge of death. You terrified us, Yuri. You terrified _me._ "

Yuri stares at the ground and watches his tears shine. "I'm sorry." His voice is barely a whisper.

Otabek sighs. Yuri can almost hear the relief and exhaustion in it, and the guilt is torturing him. 

This is it. Finally, the reckoning. The inside of Yuri's head has caused so much hurt that anything he does now won't matter. This is the part where he has nothing left to lose.

Dedushka's letter is starting to echo in his ears.

_Live out loud, Yuri._

He moves towards Otabek, tears still spiking his lashes. His heart is dying in his chest.

_Do things you wouldn't normally do._

His eyes flicker to Beka's lips. There's almost no space between the two of them.

_Take risks, koneko._

So he does. 

His lips meet Otabek's with a sigh, and it's desperate and clumsy and _electric_. He's wanted to do this every day for six months, and he's not going to stop now. Yuri presses his hands to Otabek's face, the skin freezing but his lips warm, slightly open. An invitation, Yuri thinks. His hands run through Beka's soft hair, across the skin of his neck and jawline, and _god._ Yuri could die from this.

But then Otabek takes him by the shoulders and pushes him away.

Yuri's left gasping, his pupils blown wide. There's a panicky ache starting to build in his chest, and he raises his flushed face to Beka's... but he's cut short.

Otabek's... _angry_. His eyes are shining, and Yuri feels sick to think that tears are the cause. His chest is heaving and cheeks pink, but it's not lust in his gaze. It's something that hurts.

Otabek's mouth moves, but no sound is coming out. Yuri's lips have cracked open his chest. The silence is only broken by Yuri's gasping and Otabek's shaky breaths.

"I..." Otabek's blinking back tears. What has he done? And then the tears are gone, replaced with a cold fire that makes Yuri want to throw up. 

The silence is broken harshly, suddenly, as Otabek slams his fist into the bricks of the wall. The sound of his skin tearing might be the worst thing Yuri's ever experienced.

_His fault, his fault, his fault._

There's a moment, an eye of the storm where Yuri's mind is racing to catch up, and then he does it again. Again and again, _over_ and _over_ , until his hands bleed just like Yuri's did in the dingy church bathroom. 

He draws back, blood dripping onto the concrete, and they're both shaking.

And suddenly Yuri's hit by the enormity of what he's just done.

He did have something to lose. He had the best thing, and so he did what he always does. He took stupid risks with it. He's made mistakes before in his life. So many mistakes. But this... this is irreparable. He thinks he might have just ruined the only good thing left in his wreckage of a life. 

Otabek, the epitome of composure, is furious. He might even be crying. And it's Yuri's fault. 

"What the _fuck,_ Yuri?" 

Everything that matters, gone in a second. 

"I-" 

" _What was that?_ " 

Yuri's crying too much to reply. His head is spinning again, and his throat aches. He couldn't talk, even if he had anything to say. 

Beka sinks to the cold ground, burying his head in his knees. His voice is muffled, but Yuri thinks he can hear it shaking anyway. 

"That...that wasn't fair. You know it wasn't." 

He's painfully aware of that fact. He _disappeared._ He doesn't get this.

"You _know_ how I feel about you, and you kiss me now anyway." 

He'd known this all along, but fuck, the confirmation hurts. Otabek doesn't want him, and Yuri's pathetic to think he possibly could.

"You're drunk. And I'm leaving now. I can't do this." 

The grief in Otabek's eyes as he turns is the final blow that sends Yuri crashing to his knees. 

Not Beka too. 

His father left, then his mother. Victor, Dedushka, and now Otabek. A whole fucking queue of people who'd had enough of him. Sometimes he was too much. Sometimes he wasn't enough. 

It's relentless. A fact of the universe. As long as Yuri exists, people will leave him. 

And it hurts. God, it hurts. 

He can't be abandoned again. The last piece of his shattered heart would break, become a knife in his chest. The pain would finally push him over the edge.

He won't be left behind this time. 

He'll be the one doing the leaving. 

His throat relaxes, and the tears running down his face go quiet as his voice cuts through the cold air. 

Harsh. 

Final. 

"Don't bother coming back."


	5. Two Weddings and a Funeral

Otabek doesn't look back. His footsteps echo against the concrete as he walks away into the darkness. And then he's gone before Yuri was ready to let him go.

Yuri threw away everything for the sake of a pride that doesn't matter any more- he has to wonder if it ever mattered- and for what? 

If he'd just shut his fucking mouth for once in his life, he'd still have some link, _any_ link, to the boy who used to be his best friend. But he didn't. 

There's always been a fine thread leading Otabek and Yuri to each other. It formed in Barcelona, curled into existence at the top of Parque Guell. It stretches tight when he's away from Otabek (maybe that's what causes the heartache) and beautifully relaxes when he sees him again. It's as if Otabek's eyes can unknot it, like their dark shine can unravel his heart and all the pain that comes with it. And now, when his heart needs mending, is when he's finally made himself utterly alone.

He pushed him away, just like he always does. If someone hasn't left Yuri yet, then you can bet he'll leave them before they can.

And so really Yuri has to conclude that this is all his fault.

His life is in pieces. _He's_ in pieces.

There's not much left to do but destroy what's left.

~

And that's how, three hours later, he finds himself dying on a street corner he doesn't recognize.

Yuri might only be sixteen, but he's spent enough time in clubs and bars to know when someone's gone from high to overdosed. He crossed that line approximately an hour ago, and if his calculations are right, he'll be passing out in a few minutes. It won't just be the drugs causing it, though- the rush of adrenalin seeped out of his body a little while ago, and he can feel the crash sneaking up on him, a dark shadow waiting for any opportunity.

But he's not trying to die. He can't think of a bigger cliché than the young celebrity, the tragic overdose. He's just trying to fog his brain enough that he can breathe without the weight of memory on his chest, which is why he sent a curt text to Mila an hour ago. At this point, he'd rather die than go to Victor's.

_**im coming to yours ******_

********

********

Sara's been training as a paramedic since retiring, so even if something does go wrong he'll be fine He's not an idiot, he does realize that there's a chance of complications. And though a tiny, desperate part of him whispers that it doesn't matter either way, the cliché avoidance part is stronger.

Mila and Sara probably deserved more than four words. He can't bring himself to give a shit.

But then the crash comes, inevitable and terrible, and with it a wave of nausea. He staggers to Mila's doorway and braces his hands on it, and when his stomach wrenches and he vomits on her doorstep, it's clearer than ever to Yuri why he's alone. Why he'll always be alone. 

~

He wakes up in Mila's spare bedroom with the sunlight personally attacking him. His head might actually be splitting open on the pillow, and the sound of footsteps outside cracks it a little more with each step. 

Mila opens the door, her arms folded and her hair messy with wind and worry. "I hope you're pleased with yourself, Yuri." _Bitch._ He opens his mouth for a cutting reply, but all that comes out is a small strangled noise. It sounds like a mouse being stepped on (which accurately represents how his body feels at the moment.) 

There's a tall glass of water on the nightstand, and Yuri tries to reach for it, but his body says no, because it hates him. She stalks over and puts the glass in his hand, looking away as he gulps it down. When he's finished, gasping a little, she snatches it from him and replaces it. "You, my friend, are an asshole." 

He tries for flippant, though his voice still creaks. "It keeps me up at night." 

It does.

She snorts. "I think you need your sleep. Save the self-reflection for tipsy afternoons like the rest of us. Maybe not for a while though- your whole skinny body is made of alcohol right now." 

"I'm not skinny, hag. Watch your fucking mouth. I'm lean." 

"Sure, stickman." He's pretty sure his laugh tore some of the skin off his throat.

"I'm assuming you want to know what's happened since you were passed out." 

"I'm assuming you want to tell me. I don't give a shit." He does. Of course he does. But you've got to keep up the façade when people are looking. Once he starts to crack, he's not sure he'll be able to stop, and he's fallen apart enough in the past few weeks to last a lifetime. His pride's past being injured- it was declared dead on arrival to Mila's.

"You threw up on my new doorstep at about 4am- thanks for that, by the way- and Sara and I had to drag you inside. Pretty sure the neighbors thought we were kidnapping a homeless person." 

"Weren't you?" He's still bitter, and his voice drips with it. 

She winces. "Yuri. You have a home, you know that. Victor and Yuuri were terrified when you ran off." 

"You didn't tell them where I was, did you?" 

"No. I texted them saying you were safe, and that was it. You can sleep here for a few days, but Yuri, you have to go back to them-" 

"Did you know?" His voice is weak, but there's a desperate edge to it. And he is desperate. Desperate for someone to have been as in the dark as him, for someone in his life to not have lied to him. 

Mila sighs. "No. The first idea I had of all of it was when Yuuri called me saying you'd run away. Not the best way to find out, and I've got to admit I'm a little pissed at them too." 

The rage floods him yet again. "How did you need to kno-" 

"Not me, Yuri. You. I think they should have told you back in February, and I told them as much." 

He sinks back into the pillows, defeated. "Yeah, well." 

"They're sorry." He rolls his eyes. "They are. They've been begging me to tell you that they should have known you'd hate being kept in the dark and that when you want to come back to them, they'll be waiting." 

"But if they made a mistake that big, then how shit are they going to be at raising me? Mila, I'll be so fucked up by the time I can move out." He's almost laughing. Almost.

Her face shifts into the shadows. "I hate to break it to you, Yuri, but you just nearly died of alcohol poisoning, and who knows what you said to Otabek to have him running back to Almaty like that. I'd say you're pretty fucked up already." 

And then she leaves, shutting the door behind her with a sigh of disappointment, and he's left alone with a headache.

Beka's gone.

He's really left Yuri alone. They're in separate fucking countries, on separate fucking continents. _They_ are fucking separate.

He did what Yuri wanted. Yuri spat out the exact instructions. So why does it hurt so much?

~ 

Mila's love comes in the form of laughter and scolding. She comes in often, bearing water and painkillers, and it's a gamble whether she'll make him laugh hard enough to hurt his head, or make him regret everything he's ever done. 

Those times are the least painful. He deserves those times; the others make him feel like some awful impostor, stealing sympathy when he should be the one giving it. When she's trying to make him happy but her own eyes are clouded from worry and lack of sleep he feels more keenly the grief he's caused everyone, and he aches inside. 

Mealtimes are off, seeing as he woke up sometime in the afternoon- he feels too sick to eat anyway- but Sara comes in with toast and bacon the next morning. 

He knows Mila's serious about Sara, especially after the older skater retired and came to St Petersburg- her other relationships had always been like games. She'd play the loving girlfriend and then the angry ex, but both with a twinkle in her eye that showed she was neither as loved up nor heartbroken as she pretended to be. 

There's none of that with her when Sara is around. The feelings from both of them are soft and real, true love, and they always make Yuri wonder if he really doesn't have any other single friends apart from Georgi. He'd rather die than talk about relationships with him. 

So of course he'd known that Sara was the one for Mila. He just hadn't known that they'd realized that. 

Sara's love is different to Mila's. He barely knows the girl- he's met her maybe twice, and both times Mila was too busy sucking her face to let anyone get a glimpse of it. But she's calm and quiet, a guardian angel to his headache, and kindness and hesitant affection radiate from her like sunlight. 

She's her girlfriend's polar opposite, the moon to her explosive sun of her personality, but he can sort of see why Mila's so in love. "Mila had practice. How's your head?" She raises an eyebrow as she speaks, and there it is. The sarcasm and dry humor that rings in Mila's voice is just as clear in Sara's. 

These two... They're chiaroscuro, they're black and white, but they've got just enough in common that they're perfect for each other. 

Is it not enough that all of Yuri's friends are in deliriously happy relationships? Do they really have to be with their fucking soulmates? 

~ 

This sentiment isn't helped that night, as the pillow pressed furiously over his ears completely fails to block out the breathless moans coming from next door. 

The walls of Mila's flat are too thin.

~ 

With the sun rises the knowledge that today he's got to return to the flat he's meant to be calling home, and the return of the terrible ache in his chest. One upside to being in massive pain was that it left little room for thinking about the painful things. They're flooding right back in now; Yuri thinks he'd rather take the hangover.

He's going to cry, right here in Mila's bright spare bedroom. They'll hear him through the walls. They won't mention it when he comes out, but they'll treat him like expensive glass for it. Sarcastic as Mila's been these past few days, it's nothing to what she'd usually attack him with; she's worried about him. They both are. 

He's worried about himself, too. 

The next few minutes play out depressingly similar to how he imagined them; he cries, he pretends he hasn't, they do too. Life for Yuri right now is just a carousel of different states of prettily painted denial. 

Mila's flat is bright and airy, open plan except for the bedrooms and bathroom. High ceiling, tall windows letting in the golden morning sun. It's a scaled-down version of Victor's, right down to the barista-standard coffeemaker on the counter. Real-estate magazines could use it for an six-page spread, and they probably have. Victor, of course, would get eight pages. 

Yuri hates it. If he feels this empty in the elegant corridors of Mila's flat, how will he be amongst the exposed brick walls and copper counters of Victor's? It's designed to magnify everything in Mila's, and Yuri doesn't feel much like being magnified. You magnify a flawed thing, and it's inevitable that the flaws will grow too. 

He'd rather shrink small enough that the grief won't notice him.

He's not a big fan of the mirrors, either. Everywhere he fucking goes, there's a skinny corpse glowering back at him. It's not even slightly an exaggeration- he hasn't looked this shit since the Juniors-era bowl cut. His skin is pale, almost grey, his hair is lank and greasy, and the dark circles under his eyes could have been put there with a chisel.

Yuri wonders how many drinks it would take for Mila to forgive him if he smashed them all. Fewer than it would have before Dedushka passed away; he's getting a free pass for shit he definitely shouldn't at the moment. Being honest, he'd rather they shouted. The kind glances and sorrowful eyes make him feel like he's the one who died.

He's distracted from the bitterness of his thoughts by Potya's soft tail winding around his leg. _Potya._

He stops thinking and hurting and hating and just crumples to his knees, burying his face in her fur. "You just had to wait until now to come see me, didn't you, Potya? I missed you, you dumb cat." She's so warm. " I really missed you."

A few tears escape while they sit together. She's warm and heavy in his lap, and the comfort she gives is better than any condolences. 

Yuri holds her almost fiercely close, and his hair shines in the sun from the windows as he curves over her. It's a protective stance, but she's not the one being protected. Sara, watching from the doorway, thinks it could be a painting. _Fallen angel._

And then the new kitten toddles up to them, and rubs her head against his thigh, purring. His hand emerges from the embrace, though he's still hiding in Potya's warmth, and strokes her head, shaking a little. 

Sara smiles. Even if he won't let them, god knows that boy needs a hug from someone.

When Makkachin bounds over and curls her body around his skinny, shaking back, warming his broken heart as well as his body, she turns away. 

She shuts the door behind her, leaving Yuri in the sunlight with the animals curled around him.

He's crying. 

He's smiling too.

~

However much it'd heal his soul to stay in the warmth of the winter sun through Mila's windows, training waits for no man. Yuuri had collected his travel things from where he'd dropped them in a fury on the law firm floor, and dropped them off while he was out, and it's only this he has to wear. 

The rest of his clothes are at Victor's, his new life arranged perfectly already. Against his will. They made him a new life, picture-perfect, and all he had to do was slip into it.

There was never any question of whether he'd want to.

He's been living out of this bag since leaving for the wedding, and each outfit brings a rush of painful emotions flooding back in. The suit he wore at the funeral and the wedding, stained with sweat. The loose clothes he wore for what feels like dozens of flights he's taken, and that he'll have to train in for today. The jeans he wore to the funeral parlour.

He's cried in every single one of these clothes, and holding them is clasping painful memory between his fingers.

Still, he tugs on the training clothes, trying to ignore the airport bathroom that flashes before his eyes, the people on the plane who're now living their lives as normal while his has crashed to a terrible standstill.

Mila walks him to the rink, their breaths hanging crystallized in the freezing September air. The walk back will be spent with Victor and Yuuri; he's dreading it. Their loving chatter that grates so heavily on his broken heart. The constant flirting and innuendos Yuri could _really_ do without hearing. (At least Mila and Sara leave that for when they think he can't hear.) The way they can't go even five minutes without touching in some way. 

It's disgusting.

He doesn't want to admit that he's jealous.

"How are you holding up?"

"How do you fucking think, old woman?"

"I think... that your eyes need fixing. I'm nineteen, not ninety." The banter is forced- her mind is clearly somewhere else. Judging from the tiny smile that tugs at the corner of her mouth, Yuri can guess where. 

_Jesus fucking Christ._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry there's not much beka content, i got a little carried away writing mila/sara (i love them so much)


	6. Two Weddings and a Funeral

Walking through the revolving door of the rink feels like a betrayal. The last time he was here was purely for the sake of leaving, a whole day dedicated to letting him go. And now he's back. 

He feels like maybe it was all a stunt for attention, even while the memories of his grandfather's funeral ring sharply in his mind; and if he feels like this, then how will the others react to the waste of time and emotions? He caused them all so much pain, but it was all for nothing. 

Everything is the same as it was. Give or take an ocean's worth of tears and spirits, and two more things. The two best things, the things that mattered the most. They're gone. Probably forever.

It's been exactly 34 hours. 2,040 minutes since he kissed Otabek in the empty courtyard, since he was pushed away and pushed back harder. 122,400 seconds since he tore the shreds of his life into pitiful disrepair.

He remembers learning different phobias in an off-season at about twelve; it'd been a hobby to replace the hole left by skating. He'd sit there with his grandfather for hours spouting fears and chortling at the irrational ones. It can't have been a fun experience for the old man, but he'd praise him for pronouncing the hard ones right, and laugh along with him. 

Fear of numbers, numerophobia, was one they'd laughed at. Yuri's not laughing now.

He wonders what fear of your own shitty mind is called.

Yuri's bitter thoughts are interrupted as they arrive at the rink, the revolving doors flinging him back into the gruelling routine of training. Yakov meets him and Mila in the lobby, his forehead gleaming in the light as he opens his eyes and booms, "Welcome home, Yuri."

And he's right. 

This, this right here, is the closest thing he has to a home. 

Not Yakov's annex rooms, not the bright, elegant rooms of Mila's flat, not even the cozy rooms of his grandfather's house. (He's not sure you can call a place home if you're never really there.) And he'd rather die than call Victor's flat home.

He'd thought, for a while, that home was wherever Beka was. He could almost laugh at how pathetically wrong he was.

So this rink, where Yuri broke and fell and rose and grew, over and over. Where he went from a skinny child to a skinny not-quite adult, where he cried and laughed and sweated what felt like his life force. 

Here. 

It's not quite home, but it'll do.

He's broken right now. He's fallen. But if he's done it before, he can do it again, and being at the rink, where he's picked himself up off the ice so very many times, must help somehow.

So he hugs Yakov even harder than he did when he thought he'd have to leave him for years, feeling his soft warmth. His coat smells of rugelach and the secret cigarettes he hides from Lilia.

For the last six years of his life, a hug from Yakov meant he'd won. The soft warmth meant first place, the scent of his coat a gold medal around his neck. With them comes a rush of happiness; this is Yuri's worst Pavlovian response. His body's responding to the feeling of first place, and though there's nothing here to win, maybe just getting out of bed, forcing himself to show up, is a victory in itself.

"Thank you."

Lilia appears by his side with her arms folded. Every inch of her screams _neat_ , as usual, from her hair to the perfectly turned out pointed boots. It's reassuring to know that no matter how much he fucks up, at least Lilia's perfect posture will remain. "You have lost weight."

"And your husband has gained it."

Yakov chortles even as Lilia sniffs. "I'll allow your rudeness just this once, Yuri. You won't catch me doing it again; I don't give special treatment. Yakov and I may agree that you have been treated badly, but that is no excuse for bad manners."

But she hugs him close, and the lipstick stain on his cheek says otherwise. Even Georgi gives him a distracted nod while mooning over a photo of his latest true love. 

Looking back, he thinks he should have known it was all too good to last.

~

Being back on the ice feels like relearning how to fly; this has been the longest he's gone without skating since his senior debut. This is what he's good at. This is why he is who is. This, right here, is Yuri Plisetsky, and it's _beautiful._

The movement of his feet feels as natural as breathing as he soars around the rink. He does a few laps, some jumps, and then finds himself slipping into a familiar rhythm, his skates forming elegant loops as he remembers himself again on the ice.

He's almost halfway through before he realizes what routine he's skating to.

It's Agape. 

His grandfather's song.

The grief rises within him like a storm, but he keeps going, making each movement silent, beautiful. It's not the same body he has now as he did last year, not the same heart either, but his new height makes his skating move like clear water, and his movements are long and flowing.

And then the music starts to play.

It's perfectly in time with his skating, and he turns to see Mila by the stereo. Her eyes are shining suspiciously, and she mouths something he can't make out. This girl knows his skating too well, knows him too well.

But his skating is a little different now, and so is he. 

This routine has changed from an ode to familial love to a lament that draws you in until the grief aches in your own heart too.

The meaning of the song has changed for Yuri. It speaks to him more of loss now, but the powerful love remains. A beautiful sadness rings clear in the singer's voice, but the original meaning, the love that won't be swayed by anything, is just there underneath. He wonders if the same can be true for him.

The notes rise as the song lifts towards the skies, and he flashes into the air. It feels higher than the jumps he performed for thousands at the Grand Prix, higher than any he's ever done in competition, and he's not sure whether it's grief or memory that lifted him so far, and he doesn't care, and he's not sure there's a difference anymore.

The song starts to slow, and he slides to a stop, a flush rising on his cheeks and breathing hard. Yuri's hands are raised skywards, but he's not sure what he's reaching for.

He turns his head. Mila has her phone raised, and she's beaming like a sister out of shining eyes.

He turns again. Yakov and Lilia, holding hands and smiling proudly.

One more turn.

And there are Victor and Yuuri, and Victor's crying.

Yuri warily let his guard down for the first time since arriving in St Petersburg, and only for the people closest to him, who he caused so much pain for, and who never lied to him and would never. Those people deserved an apology of some sort, even if a vocal one was never going to happen.

But here are the people who made him put his walls up in the first place. They don't get to see him vulnerable. They broke him, and now they want to absolve their guilt by watching him finally start to heal. 

They're here for their own benefit, not his. 

They signed the adoption papers for their own gain, too. 

They don't care about him, they just want to play happy families, and he was the nearest toy.

Every single thing they've done for him has a motive. Their love is an apple, sweet and crisp outside, but filled with rot at the center.

He turns in fury; to storm towards them; to run and cry; to scream and curse and break things: he doesn't know, but he never gets to find out because suddenly his skate catches on a patch of rough ice and he's _twisted_ in two directions by gravity. 

His head makes a sickening dull thud against the ice, and he sinks into a velvet darkness.

~ 

This time, training waits for him.

He swims back into clouded consciousness on the ice, with Mila's arms around him and the floodlights glaring down. Her hair hangs over his face as she leans above him, a cherry blur in his distorted eyes.

And then another smudge of crimson catches his eye; there's blood on the ice around him, dashed into streaks and sprays like a disturbed Rorschach ink blot. 

_What can Yuri see? A man, a flower, a dog?_

What about a ruined future?

It's like his ankle responds to its calling- the wave of pain that floods through him is intense enough to make his body bow off the ice, shaking against Mila.

Her hugs are soft and comforting as the pain starts to ebb, and as he turns his aching head into her warmth, wanting only to disappear, his eyes snag on Yakov, a phone in his tremoring hand. The sound of him talking to emergency services is drowned out by a soft ocean in Yuri's head, and he just doesn't want to do anything now but sleep.

But then he sees Victor step onto the ice, and his head is filled with less peaceful things. His body, his heart, his mind- they're _broken,_ and if he can't blame himself then he'll be damned if he won't blame Victor and Yuuri.

" _Get. Back._ You've done _enough_." He spits at them like a wounded animal, and Mila tenses behind him, getting ready to bare her own teeth and snarl if she needs to. 

Victor freezes, a wild look on his pale face, and Yuri wonders what he's about to do, what he's about to say, and whether he could possibly stop it. But then his shoulders slump, and his eyes cast away from the sky they resemble. He's left stranded in the center of the ice, and the only person who can tug him back into warmth and safety is just as paralyzed by the rinkside; Yuuri's wide brown eyes blink behind their glasses, hurt and shocked, but still full of warmth for anyone who wants it.

But Yuri _doesn't_ want it. He can't think of anything worse right now. He just wants these two to get the fuck _away_ from him. He just wants to go to sleep.

Lilia takes Victor gently by the elbow and leads him away. "You're not what he needs right now, malysh. Let him heal a little, first."

Yuuri is waiting for him, and takes his hand. Their footsteps echo as they leave, an imprint of sorrow that can't be mistaken, but the set of their shoulders whisper of their hope. Yuri hates it- he doesn't want them to have hope, to have each other and the love they share. He want them to be broken. Like he's broken.

But they leave, and even though he's tried his hardest to make them feel something, anything, one tiny fraction of the agony raging inside of his body right now, their heads are held high despite their heavy hearts, and their hands are linked.

And Yuri's pride, the one thing Yuuri and Victor had kept fragile but just barely untouched, is finally shattered. 

_Hasn't he finally lost everything he could possibly lose?_

Mila strokes his hair as the tears start to well, and her fingers come away wet with crimson blood. She soothes him like Dedushka used to after nightmares, shushing his cries and whispering comfort into the storm of his head. He buries his face in her lap, and shudders into ugly infant cries, and thinks that _one day, if she feels like it, Mila will be the most amazing mother._

She bends her head over his ear and speaks softly. "Yuri, the ambulance is on its way."

He sobs aloud like a child. " _It hurts."_

He doesn't know which part of him he's talking about at this point.

Her arms come around him, cradling him with perfect care. "I know it does, kotenok, but they'll be here in maybe ten minutes, and you are brave. We all know that, and I _know_ that you can do this."

"What-" He's cut off by a flood of agony as he tries to raise his head, and tenses into painful shakes, panting. "What did I break?"

"Shit, Yuri, I don't know, I'm not Sara." She gives him a watery smile. "Your head is bleeding, though."

"Well, I didn't think that-" he gestures weakly at the blood, "-was there for fucking _decoration,_ did I?"

~

The paramedics are kind and efficient, and load him into the back of the ambulance with a fluffy red blanket constricting his limbs. They shine a torch into his eyes and make him have a pointless conversation about the weather, and then, _at last,_ they let him sleep.

He's too tired at this point, in every way possible, to care about any of this anymore. Yuri's very bones ache with the exhaustion of the past week, and he didn't exactly get much sleep last night.

Broken bones and emotional trauma are nothing compared to having to listen to Mila and Sara have sex instead of sleeping. So he sleeps off the memories now- the paramedics are a man in his twenties who looks like a rejected Abercrombie & Fitch model and a woman of about fifty with Olympic-standard triceps and buzzed curls; at least there's not much chance of them jumping each other in the back of the ambulance.

Finally, he closes his eyes. 

~

Yuri has decided he hates the color pink. The x-ray room, his ward, the ER- all the exact same shade of Dead Salmon.

_The paint company needs to contact him, he has more gems where that came from._

The shade isn't doing Mila any favors, either. She sits with Sara next to his bed on the hard hospital chairs, and both of them look washed out. Maybe it's the lighting, maybe it's the stress of having to care for an heartbroken teenager.

Together they wait for Yakov and news of Yuri's future. 

Even the glow surrounding her since Sara arrived at the hospital can't hide how pale and grey her face looks. Especially when her hollow eyes catch on the thick white cast on his ankle.

When the doctor told him that though the concussion would last a few days, his ankle would take at least six weeks to heal, the natural response that bubbled up inside him was _it won't take that long._ He's used to excelling in anything in anything physical, whether it's a quad at the age of twelve or his signature half-Biellmann spins. It's a sore on his pride to know even he can't speed up the healing of his broken body.

It feels like a failure- he's done the impossible before, over and over, until the word lost its meaning for him. To Yuri, impossible just means he makes history. There was never a chance of impossible actually meaning impossible, until now.

The door opens, and Yakov and Lilia enter carefully. Yuri's pretty sure five in a one bed ward pushes all sorts of rules, but he can't bring himself to heave his walls back up and tell them to leave. 

He can maybe feel a new Yuri starting to bloom amongst these four. Perhaps new is the wrong word. Still _him,_ still an angsty, foulmouthed record breaker with a thing for cats and Otabek. 

Stronger is maybe a better word. There are fewer walls holding him up and keeping him apart from the world, but his house hasn't fallen yet.

"Yuri, how are you feeling?" Lilia's cheeks are even more pinched than normal.

"Like I've been stepped on by an entire football team. It's not as hot as I imagined."

She lets out a rare laugh. "I'm not surprised."

Yakov is fiddling with his scarf in the corner. "Yuri, I want to make sure you understand something."

"What?"

"The Grand Prix is off, and I'm sure you know that already. The cast comes off between Internationaux de France and Skate America, and since you drew China and France, there's just no way you can compete-"

"Yakov, I know that-"

"But there's also no guarantee that you'll be clear for Europeans."

"Wait. What? What are you talking about? My ankle will be healed by late November, there's still over two months till Europeans, and my routines are-"

"I mean mentally, Yuri. Emotionally."


	7. Two Weddings and a Funeral

It's hard to argue with someone when you know they're right, but Yuri doesn't lose arguments. He's gone sixteen years without admitting he's wrong, he's not going to stop now. 

And if he can't win, then he'll have to shut Yakov up another way. 

Any way. 

Anything to just make him _stop._

Yuri's not ready to hear the painful truths leaving Yakov's pitying mouth right now (he doubts he ever will be,) and the coach is looking at him like he's an unexploded bomb.

Maybe that's not right- he's had his fair share of explosions. 

Either way, there's no way Yakov will listen to anything he has to say until he can prove that his mind is vaguely stable again. 

If he begs, then he'll get sorrowful eyes and pity. 

If he swears and shouts, then he'll just prove a point somewhere deep in Yakov's senile brain.

"Get out. All of you."

And somehow that response, the one he'd crafted so carefully to avoid anything that would hurt him even more, brings every worst-case scenario to life. So Yuri flings his arm over his face and pretends he's anywhere else, anyone else.

~

People pass the glass panels in the door and wonder at the terrible pain he must be in. They think of how brave he must be, what could possibly be agonizing enough that he has to block of out the world. None of them think for a moment that the skinny kid helpless in a hospital bed could possibly be the source of pain.

He stays twisted in a torment of self-hatred and bedsheets until the doctor comes around mid-afternoon.

"It's a reasonably simple break, Mr Plisetsky, you were very lucky. Do you have someone to pick you up before midnight today?"

He knows the answer, knows that Victor and Yuuri are probably worrying outside his ward even now, but he wants more than anything for the response to be different.

_Play the sympathy card._

"Shouldn't I stay for the night? I just had a near death experience."

The doctor chuckles. _Bastard._ "Like I said, it's a minor break, with excellent potential to heal."

Fucking potential. Again. 

People have been raving about Yuri's potential for six years straight. How, in a few years, he could really make a name for himself. How, maybe, with some training, he could reach the top. How, with luck, one day he could surpass even Victor Nikiforov.

He fucking hates it. To Yuri, someone with great potential is just someone who isn't already great.

He does that a lot. If a judge says a routine was extraordinary for someone his age, then he wonders why it wasn't just extraordinary. If a journalist calls him a prodigy, then a poisonous voice whispers in the back of his mind, asking why he wasn't named as a talented skater standing on his own two feet.

There's something broken in him that interprets anything less than miraculous as a failure. 

But potential is the worst of the lot. Every introduction, every compliment after a competition, even Yakov during training.

They focus on his future, not the tears and blood he sacrifices to the rink now. Everyone's vision is filled with the sparkling, picture-perfect version of him that, hopefully, one day, a miracle might be able to birth. The him of now is left out of sight in the dark.

They care about a maybe, about a person that will only exist when his edges and breaks, everything that makes him him, have been painted over with gold.

They want someone who can turn charisma on and off like a tap. Someone with laughing eyes and killer cheekbones. Someone with a great love story, who can charm anyone he wants but whose heart belongs to one person and only ever one person. Someone who can chat with the media for hours but won't reveal a single thing about his life if he doesn't want to, and who takes young skaters under his wing and adopts rescue dogs, all while executing a perfect quad Salchow. 

They want Victor.

And the only reason anyone gives a shit about Yuri is because he has 'potential' to become him.

He wonders what would happen if he wasted that potential.

Whether he has already.

~

This time there's no escaping it- he's going to have to return to Victor's. 

Of the six escape plans he'd crafted while he drifted in and out of the last dregs of anesthetic, only one works with a cast on his ankle. And he's pretty sure he'd finally kill Yakov if he put it into action- he's getting on a bit, and Yuri's not sure his coach's heart could take watching his prodigy hurl himself out of a hospital bed and crawl along the corridor until he can throw himself down a laundry chute and land amongst the dirty gowns and bedsheets. (Though maybe that's where he really belongs. He can live out his life as a laundry goblin, eating socks and washing powder.) 

Yuri snorts as the doctor comes through the door, and he gets given a startled look. Maybe a new plan could be to get himself admitted to the psychiatric ward for inane muttering and laughter.

He may be crazy, but he's not stupid. He knows full well that no matter what he does, he's screwed. He'd googled adoption laws in a moment of pitiful desperation, and the general gist was that unless Victor and Yuuri are actually abusive, he's stuck with them. 

Unfortunately, Russian adoption laws don't count the monthly Katsuki-Nikiforov karaoke night as abuse.

The doors swing open with flamboyant force, and Mila barges through, tugging a smiling Sara with one hand and holding a bag of his clean clothes with the other.

He turns his head away. "Fuck off."

"You fuck off."

"Wow, baba, devastating comeback."

"Fuck off squared. I have your clothes here, and I'd offer you help getting them on but I literally cannot think of anything I'd hate more."

"Trust me, the feeling's mutual."

She gives him the finger and leaves as quickly as she came in, Sara pausing just long enough in the doorway to throw him a sad smile.

Ten minutes later, he's sitting in the silence of the hospital room in clean clothes, feeling as empty of any soul and personality as the room around him. He can hear Victor and Yuuri signing papers on the other side of the wall, their voices grating on his nerves. Otherwise the only sound is the clock on the wall. He wonders if there's any way to make it go slower, to slow down and thicken time into honey before he has to integrate into domestic bliss with the world's most shattered glass heart.

As it turns out, there isn't. The hands of the clock fly round fast enough to make fun off him until there's a soft, hesitant knock on the door. Three shadows hang through the glass, waiting for him to give up and give in.

"Don't come in. It might bite."

The door opens anyway. "Very funny, Mr Plisetsky." The doctor looks over his glasses at him. 

Victor's eyes are full of questions, and his hand full of Yuuri's. "Are...are you ready to go?"

He'll never be fucking ready. 

But the doctor's watching, so he bares his teeth in what's supposed to be a smile. "As I'll ever be."

~

Yuri's never actually seen Victor's car before, and he's pretty sure that Victor was counting on that. It's the most horrific thing he's ever seen- infinitely expensive, shiny enough to blind passing pedestrians for life, with an engine that purrs like Potya when she's happy.

And vivid pink.

"I'm not getting in that."

"Why not?" The sad thing is that it's a truthful question; Victor can genuinely see no problem with his terrible, terrible car.

"Because it's the fucking Barbie dream car, that's why not!"

Yuuri visibly bites back a laugh, turning to Victor with a forced hurt look on his face but shining eyes.

"It's top of the range, Yurio-"

He snaps a little and spits at them like a wild thing. " _That's not my fucking name,_ and trust me, the problem isn't just the car." 

"Then what is- ... _oh."_

The grief on Yuuri's face isn't forced any more.

But their pain just makes him angrier, until he's sure that he'll lose it completely if they say one more fucking word. _What right do they have to be sad? To be surprised that he reacted like this? His life has gone to shit- he has perfect rights to act however he wants._

"Yuri. Please. Get in the car. We can talk at home."

" _Your_ home."

Victor's eyes widen with hurt, but he picks himself up from the stumble. "Whatever you want to call it is fine, but please, just get in the car."

"If I had both my legs free..."

"We know, Yuri."

Victor puts the top up on the way home, trapping Yuri in the plush interior. In the front seat, Victor and Yuuri can barely keep their eyes off each other, smiling like idiots whenever their gazes meet, and in the back, Yuri wonders if he could get away with leaning over the wheel and crashing the car. 

As they pull up outside the flat, Victor turns off the engine but makes no move to open the door. 

"Yuri."

"Fucking _what."_

"I know that this isn't exactly what you want right now, and I'd just like to say... we're sorry."

He snorts, and Yuuri turns around in his seat too, dark eyes pleading. "We are. I know we should have told you back in February, but you'd just won Four Continents, and your grandfather thought it would be best not to derail the Olympics and Worlds. And you won silver in the Olympics and then a Worlds gold, so..."

He won Worlds for two reasons and two reasons only. 

One. Victor was still busy enjoying his season off, and that meant Victor and Yuuri were busy enjoying each other. Yuuri never actually got much training done, deciding that though he'd enter available competitions, he'd focus on the Grand Prix and countless rounds of marathon sex. It erased two out of three of his biggest competition, leaving only Beka, who'd snagged gold at the Olympics and bronze in Four Continents.

Two. He was standing by the rink, watching every tiny mistake Phichit made like a hawk. Calculating exactly how to beat him using Allegro Appasionato with a ruthless ambition. The song ended, and Phichit skated off, floating on dreams of a pastel ice show. 

And then they announced Yuri's name. 

He held his head high and made to enter the rink, to carve up the ice with his talent like he belonged there and it belonged to him. But as his skate met the ice, a hand encircled his wrist. 

He turned to see Otabek, pink high on his cheekbones from his own skate and with shining eyes, and his traitorous heart melted. 

But this was the one thing he had to have self control over, because there was just too much to lose. 

Sometimes Yuri thought that if he could just be Otabek's friend, to be able to look at him every day and just be with him, then the heartache that wrenched his body every time would be worth it.

But then Otabek would move, or speak, or, god forbid, smile, and Yuri would nearly die with helpless, fierce love. Nearly always, he'd cry after, broken with the knowledge that he was stuck under the crushing weight of desire for someone who would never return it.

And this time would have been like that. Another hour of crying with hopelessness in the bathrooms after narrowing his margin or even losing because he was too heartsick, of emerging with a cold medal against his skin instead of the warmth of someone's touch.

But it wasn't. This time was different, in the most wonderful way he could have imagined. 

Because it wasn't a repeat of the Grand Prix, where he'd fallen fast and hard but not quite realized it until suddenly he was standing over Parque Guell with his heart shining and Otabek in front of him in the sunset with his hair soft in the wind. 

It wasn't like Europeans or Four Continents, where a shout of "davai!" before each skate made his heart sing and break in equal measure. He'd won both, but with narrower and narrower margins and a growing ache in his chest.

It was nothing like the heartbreaking smile he had at the Olympics. Otabek had flashed him the most adorable grin. His eyes crinkled and shone, and his dimples appeared out of nowhere and threw Yuri head over heels. It was a beautiful smile, the most beautiful, but it was one Yuri recognized. He'd seen it when he accompanied Otabek to Almaty and watched him talk to his parents.

It was a smile he used for people he loved. For family. And he included Yuri in that.

He headed out onto the ice feeling more lucky and more alone than anyone else in the world. 

And, halfway through Agape, the alone part suddenly took over, and he fell awkwardly on the ice in front of thousands, handing Otabek the gold and himself a dose of self-hatred and heartbreak.

This time, at Worlds, was different, because with the whole planet able to watch, Otabek tugged him close, until the tip of his nose traced across Yuri's jaw as he whispered in his ear. He could barely hear Beka's words over the thundering of his heart, hammering out the way his breath was catching in his throat.

"I'm betting on you, Yura."

Those words... they were fucking sparks, and they lit up his hysterical heart and the desperate hope he carried with him everywhere. 

He stormed onto the rink like hellfire, like a raging inferno and a winter storm, with barely a longing look back, threw himself into Allegro Appasionato with Beka's warmth still lingering against his face, and he set three new records.

That's what Otabek does to him.

And there's no news that could have changed that.

~

Victor's flat is so much worse than he'd imagined. In his head it was one of those infinitely expensive designer homes, with cold, elegant rooms and corridors, all exposed brick and glass. Somewhere utterly empty of any life and joy. He'd fit right in.

But it's not. 

It's perfect. 

The architecture is modern and involves enough glass to fill the rooms with golden light, but stops right before it starts showing off. The ceilings are high, and there are bare walls everywhere, but there's not a single room without a soft rug or cushions that actually look comfy on the sofa. The color schemes are modern and classy but somehow subtle, and either Makka or Potya curl softly around him wherever he goes. It's tidy, but there's an empty coffee mug on the counter and books stacked messily on all the shelves.

It's achingly clear that people live here, and love surrounds each room.

It's a _home._

"I'm going-"

"To your room? Lovely." Victor smiles brightly at him from the doorway, clearly guarding the exit.

"Whatever."

His room is the second of three, with stripped walls, oak floorboards and a window that stretches towards the high ceilings. It would be the perfect soulless room for Yuri to wallow in his heartbreak if not for the sunlight flooding it, and the personal touches one of them must have added. There's a colorful, expensive-looking throw on the duvet, a bed for Potya and a smaller one for the kitten in the corner... and so, _so_ many pot plants.

They're everywhere.

He spins, trying to fathom who on earth could _possibly_ care about plants as much as they think he does. An aloe vera on the bedside table, a tall fern in the corner, three tiny succulents lined up on the bookshelf, and the ugliest crimson flower he's ever seen on the desk. 

It looks like the blood he saw on the rink this morning, and all of a sudden he feels sick.

"How do you like it?" Victor's voice comes suddenly from the doorway, making him whip around.

"I wasn't aware my new room was the Amazon fucking rainforest."

"I did tell him." Yuuri appears by Victor's side, holding his hand. "When has Yuri ever actually told you he likes plants?"

"Everyone likes plants! They cause happiness and reduce stress levels, and they're beautiful, natural things."

"You're going soft, old man. That one's not a beautiful, natural thing-" he points to the yellow monstrosity- "it's an abomination of God."

"Same."

"Victor!"

"Sorry."

Yuri's not sure if he'll be able to take two years of Victor's shitty jokes without smashing said abomination over his head.


	8. Two Weddings and a Funeral

Yuri shuts the door behind them as soon as they leave, wishing more than anything that he could replace the plants with a lock. He flops onto the bed, wincing when his cast knocks against the frame, and opens his phone. 

No notifications.

He reminds himself that he'd blocked Otabek amidst a haze of drunken laughter on his fifth club. His new friends had cheered as he tapped the button, pressing sweet drinks and drugs into his hands. But he remembers that before he took one, the screen had been blurred with the tears in his eyes.

So Beka's blocked. Yuri blocked him. And all that means is that he's an idiot for feeling disappointed at his empty phone. 

He pauses at the word unblock, his heart thrumming like a caged bird. 

Maybe, just maybe, if he unblocked Beka...

He'd send the world's longest, most grovelling apology, and Beka, being a literal angel sent to this earth by a god who was definitely trying to kill Yuri, would accept it. 

And then they'd never talk about it again. Things between them would be strange for a while, but they'd make it through. They always do. 

And finally, one day, he'd close his eyes and not replay their kiss in his mind until it fractured, thousands of Yuri's tears hot on his face, a multitude of relationships shattering over and over. He'd look at Otabek and see a true friend, a better person. He'd look at Otabek and feel a comfortable nothing.

Everything would be how it was supposed to. 

Because that's the thing. Yuri's fever dreams aren't meant to be. They're not written in the stars or on his palms, in his tea leaves or his tarot . They're not written anywhere, because he wasn't _supposed_ to fall for his best friend.

It's been Yuri against the world more times than he can remember. But if the world is standing in the way of something he really wants, then he'll claw his way through stars and darkness and hellfire to get it. And, fuck, he really wants Otabek.

He isn't meant to be in love with Beka. It ruins his friendships, his love life, even his skating. 

But he can't help it. And he won't stop.

In an ideal world, Yuri looks at Otabek and sees a talented skater with an awesome aesthetic and a weird talent for braiding hair.

Not the boy he wants to wake up to.

If he unblocks him now, that reality will come true. Their friendship will heal, and everything will be as it was. But Yuri doesn't want that. 

He wants to be able to melt into him while they watch shitty movies under a blanket. He wants to hold him, to feel his warmth and the way he snuffles when he's sleepy. He wants to kiss him, to wind his fingers in his hair and gasp into his mouth. 

When it comes to Otabek, Yuri wants everything.

And maybe it's selfish, or maybe it's just typical of Yuri Plisetsky not to take second place. 

But there's no way he's settling now.

~

"Yurio!"

" _That's not my_...name." He's brought up short in his bedroom doorway by Victor. 

This man is 28 years old. He has won five consecutive gold medals. He's considered a living legend in skating by anyone who knows anything about the sport. He's a former prodigy, a sex symbol, and one of the most talented athletes this world has ever known.

And currently he's crouching on the counter like a goblin, stealing chopped vegetables meant for the dinner Yuuri's cooking. They're both laughing, their eyes shining and always drawn back to the other by some invisible magnetism Yuri's too single to see.

This, right here, is Victor when all of his walls are down. His good moods crumble some, being home a few more, and Yuuri sends the rest of them crashing to the ground.

This might be the first time Yuri's truly seen Victor in his comfort zone, and it's so different from the millionaire playboy he displays to the world and the loving, flippant demeanor he shows during training and to other skaters.

He didn't know how many walls Victor was putting up for him until they vanished.

This isn't some beautiful, poignant moment of realization. It's just another thing Victor hid from him. He's not grateful for the chance to be let in, he's pissed off. So he does what he's best at, and picks a fight.

"Get the fuck off the counter. You're twenty eight, not six. Both of you look fucking stupid."

They fall silent, looking to him in unison with hurt eyes. Then Victor's fill with the joy of an argument, and he hops off the counter.

"Really, Yuri, you'd think your insults would have progressed by now. Still at kindergarten level, I see."

"You want to be fucking insulted? How about this; you- both of you- are _past it._ You're clinging to the shreds of fame from your past wins, and your fiancé is pathetic enough that he never had any in the first place. His one claim to fame is you, and soon even that won't help him- you peaked years ago. Soon you'll have faded out of the spotlight completely, and when that happens you can join him in being the tower of wasted oxygen that's a mediocre figure skater."

The joy falls away, leaving a dark light that gleams with malice.

"Yuri, I really don't think you're in any position to be criticizing my skating. You've been dragged out of the Grand Prix lineup kicking and screaming; when exactly do you think your peak will be? No matter what you say about me, history will prove you wrong, every time. But when you talk about Yuuri like that? See, that pisses me off. Because what right do you have to spit on my love and my fiance, when you managed to send Otabek running all the way back to Almaty with your attempts at romance?"

The words are ice that flashes along his veins and leave him frozen to the ground.

_They knew?_

_They all knew, this whole time..._

And now Victor's sharpening his heartbreak like a knife and using it against him, cutting grief deep into his chest.

He spits like a cat. "Stop poking your piece of shit nose where it doesn't belong- where it will never fucking belong. Neither of you know _anything_ about me, and it's pretty fucking clear that you don't know shit about family either. I pity the kid that ends up with you two as parents- I can only imagine how much you'll fuck it up."

"Like you fucked up with Otabek?" Victor's smile. It's dark and furious and a little bit insane.

Yuri can do all of those things.

He reaches for a vase, and _fuck_ it's hard not to send it crashing into Victor's skull. But there's a shred of conscience left in Yuri that curls around his mind like smoke and whispers that _yes, Victor is goading him, and yes, it's working, and yes, he's this close to tears of rage._ But he doesn't mean it. Victor's got a stupidly big heart; he'll regret this later. And so will Yuri, if he commits manslaughter with a priceless vase at sixteen.

But his blood is boiling, so with a snarl he swings around and smashes it into the mirror- two antiques shattered for the price of one. How many useless, expensive items can he destroy in this useless, expensive flat before they restrain him?

He wrenches a painting off the wall and jumps on it, watching the shards spin out across the floor like ice after a fall.

A lamp, the base made of a heavy metal that's viciously satisfying as he sends it crashing against the wall hard enough to make the building shake.

When he wants to be, Yuri Plisetsky is a raging hurricane. The howling winds of his rage are ripping the room apart, until there's broken glass and torn canvas all over the floors, and the walls are dented and scraped. He leaves crimson smudges everywhere he touches, and now the walls and the floor are covered in unhinged droplets and streaks.

He screams at the universe, his body tense and alive with fury and grief, and he's about to start on the room itself, the furniture, anything that will help him get even a _part_ of the pain he's feeling into their heads. 

And then a hand reaches out, strong and sure, and latches onto his wrist. 

Yuuri stands in front of him, brown eyes pleading. 

His shoulders are set without hesitation, but it's not confrontational. Katsuki Yuuri has eyes like a sedative; as he meet's Yuri's, the anger rushes out of his body, leaving him aching and cold and so, so tired.

"Yuri. Put it down."

He obeys almost without thinking; the picture frame in his trapped hand clatters to the floor, harsh in the silence.

"Not quite what I meant, but whatever. If I let you go, then you can't lose it again."

He tries to think, then nods. There are tear tracks on his pale face and all over his heart, and all he wants to do now is sleep.

"Okay." He hesitates, then frees his wrist.

Yuri turns, and leaves, closing the door behind him.

Victor sticks a finger up at his thin back as he retreats into the silence of his room.

"Fucking brat."

Yuri doesn't hear- but Yuuri does, and Victor's taken aback by the anger that flashes in his brown eyes.

" _Seriously, Victor?"_

~

Earlier, the tiredness had been a visceral being that weighed him down, but now he's staring up at the swirls of paint on his ceiling and his eyes refuse to close.

He's been thinking since his meltdown, and he's decided that he can't stay here.

It's not a childish tantrum anymore; Yuuri and Victor's domestic bliss will stab at his heart until it bleeds unless it heals before he sees them.

Yuri needs to get away, just until he's a little more stable. He needs to relearn how to be in this new ruined world of his, how to sing with a cracked voice and fly with broken wings.

He needs to remember how to want to live when he's lost everything he was living for. 

And he thinks he realizes how to do it now.

He's interrupted by a knock on his door, and more than anything he wants to fake sleep and avoid the conversation he knows is coming. But for his plan to work, he needs to tell them about it, and even get their permission. 

Disappearing again would kill them, and he doesn't want to be alone again.

"Come in."

Surprisingly, it's Victor. 

He's normally elegant on and off the ice, but now his feet lag a little in exhaustion, and when he drops into the armchair it's louder than it would be.

"Yuuri's not talking to me."

Yuri turns to the wall, letting silence ring through the air.

"You know, this is the first time we've properly argued. Ever. You have quite the talent, Yurio- Yuri."

He sighs, uncertain. "I think what I really came here to do is apologize. it wasn't fair of me to do that, to bring up things I knew you were hurting about. You've had your life torn apart, and here I am, a literal god, looked up to by millions, front page of Vogue. It can't be making you feel any more secure."

He's joking, of course, but it's painfully close to the truth. It's Victor's successes, his great love story, that make Yuri feel so sharply where he's ruined his own chances of them.

His voice is hoarse and harsh in the quiet room. "I'll pay you for the damage."

"Don't worry about it. I've smashed my fair share of ridiculously expensive antiques, and most of them belonged to sponsors. Still amazes me that I was never caught."

A broken exhale of air through his nose. Not quite a laugh, but a start.

He takes a deep breath. "Victor, I think-"

"That you need a break. I know. Yuuri and I were talking about it before you freaked out."

"How did you-"

"This-" he gestures at Yuri's pale face, the tears clinging to his lashes and the blood on his knuckles- "doesn't exactly look like someone who's thriving in the environment they're in."

He used to pride himself on his spontaneity, the way nobody ever knew what he was thinking, what he was about to do. Another way he's fucked up.

"I want to travel, Victor. I'm going to see different Grand Prix events, I have it all planned out."

He sighs, resigned but happy. "Sounds great. I would have travelled during my year off, but I ended up going to Hasetsu instead. Thank god I did..."

"I still haven't forgiven you for that, old man."

Victor is someone who laughs with his eyes, but right now they're too tired to hold much happiness. Now is a time for healing, for recovering joy, not for joy itself. "There are a lot of things you shouldn't be forgiving me for any time soon."

And there's just as many that Yuri doesn't deserve forgiveness for. Both of these two live life so loudly that whatever they do is a shower of sparks and ice, and that includes screwing up. Their mistakes, like everything they do, are spectacular enough that they balance each other out.

And then a kind of tired peace is regained.

"When do you leave?"

"November first." The fact that none of this is under question soothes him a little- having to beg and argue to go would be another weight piled on his shaking shoulders.

"You're not going to watch Rostelecom or Canada?"

Might as well confess. "Those are Otabek's events..." His traitor voice catches.

His mouth forms an o, but no noise comes out. "Got it."

This is the first time he's spoken Otabek's name since he lost the right to call him Beka, and it makes hot tears brim in eyes. Victor reaches out, his eyes questioning. 

He can't keep pushing people away. If he tries to stay standing then he'll just fall all over again. Over and over, until there's nothing left of him to be destroyed.

So he leans into Victor's hug, and his arms go around him like he actually cares. It's the hug his grandfather used to give, that his mother should have given if she'd care enough about him to stick around. It's the soft embrace of family, and it's enough to make the tears spill over, a damp patch bleeding onto Victor's shoulder.

"For a brat, you've handled all this wonderfully."

"I've had two breakdowns and nearly died. Doesn't sound too fucking wonderful."

"I know. It was shit. I was just trying to make you feel better. My hair's going to be grey by the time I'm thirty thanks to you."

"Victor. Your hair is already grey."

"It's silver, you absolute _whore."_

 _Might as well come out and say it now. It's as good a time as any._

"I know you're only here so Yuuri forgives you."

Victor looks taken aback, then smiles, stroking Yuri's hair. "Maybe. But I'm also here because... because you were hurting. You needed someone right now, and I know I'm not the best person for the job. Of course I do. But I'd like to think that I'm a little better than being alone."

And he stays with Yuri, soothing him when he cries, making him laugh when he's got nothing left in him, and all the while he doesn't let go. He doesn't leave Yuri, or show any sign of wanting to be somewhere else.

"What I said, back then... about you two being bad parents." Victor nods. "I didn't mean it. You... might actually be pretty decent parents."

"Is this an apology?"

"You're not getting an apology, fuck off."

But it's the closest he can get. And Victor understands that.

"Either way...thank you, Yuri. That means a lot."

There's another knock, and Yuuri opens the door. "There's food, if you want it."

Victor detaches, and smiles up at his fiancé with hopeful eyes. Yuuri rolls his eyes, smiling, then reaches out and pulls him into a kiss. Successfully forgiven, Victor heads into the kitchen, leaving Yuuri leaning against the doorway, smirking after him.

When Yuri gets up and makes for the kitchen, Yuuri pulls him into a hug, and almost without thinking he finds himself clinging back.

"I'm so proud of you, Yuri. You know that, right?"

"Yeah, I know."

And it's actually true. For some unknown reason, these two are absolutely delighted by their new heartbroken disaster child.

~

There's soft music playing in the background as they eat, and soft conversation. Yuuri's made stroganoff, and it's tasty enough, warm and filling enough, to comfort him a little. They leave the conversation open in case he wants to join, but don't directly confront him to, and keep stealing little soft glances at him.

It's strange. At Yakov's, he'd be grilled about training and routines while he scarfed something bland that seemed to consist entirely of protein powder. From what he can remember of living with his grandfather, they mostly ate in comfortable silence, tasty winter food like this.

He thinks the closest thing to this is probably Hasetsu, where the quiet chatter made each fragrant dish go down easily, and various relatives asked sincerely about his wellbeing.

So, yes, it's strange. But it's...not bad.

~

They spend two days together, and while Victor and Yuuri are throwing everything they have into their last day of training, they use the whole evening to spend time with Yuri. They put him first like only Dedushka ever has.

He spends a lot of the time they're gone with the animals- walks with Makkachin, snuggling with Potya, and deciding what to name the new kitten. 

It takes him a while, but after twenty minutes of staring out of the window in thought, he settles on Niko. 

It's like Nikolai, like neko. Sounds a little Russian, a little Japanese. A name taken from something else and made better, just like Potya's. Google says the Japanese translation is _smiling._

To him, it's perfect.

He cries a little, then, and Potya licks his hand and rubs against him almost like she can tell something is wrong. Makkachin sits by him, too, tilting her head inquisitively. There's a peace animals can bring, when something's truly wrong. They can't talk, or reason, but they're warm and soft and loving, and sometimes that's better.

He looks up, wiping away the last of the tears, to see Niko padding across the rug towards him. She stops just short of his reach, and meets his eyes like a challenge. Then, she squats.

"Don't you fucking dare."

She pisses all over the cream rug, holding direct eye contact the entire time.

"You _bastard."_

This cat has it out for Victor. She bites him, then pees on his carpet. 

It's wonderful. What's less wonderful is that fact that he's the one who's going to have to clean it up.

He's still scrubbing when Victor and Yuuri come home. Yuuri drops to his knees to help, but Victor's too busy laughing at him. "She's not house trained yet, then?"

"I wouldn't laugh. It's your rug that's going to stink of piss."

"It's worth it for the look on your face!"

He's starting to wish she'd peed in Victor's shoe, but they get it out eventually, and next time she goes in the litter tray.

They spend their evening with animals curled around them on the sofa, under expensive blankets that are worn enough to be soft, watching shitty Halloween movies and eating Yuuri's food.

The next day is spent in preparation- Victor packs his things for Rostelecom, Yuuri cooks enough to feed St Petersburg for when Victor's home alone between Rostelecom and America ("because I have seen this man burn pasta, Yuri. I've watched him, with my own eyes, put a fork in the microwave.")

There's a neatly drawn schedule on the wall- Victor's drawn events 1 and 6, Rostelecom and America, and is going to return home in between to train and look after the animals, then join Yuri in Japan if he makes it to the Final in Nagoya. Yuuri has Skate Canada and NHK, 2 and 4, and he's staying in Hasetsu afterwards to be with his family.

Yuri's leaving for China, then travelling to Japan to watch Yuuri skate live, France, and then America with Victor. A whole schedule crafted especially to avoid Otabek's events.

He's trying hard not to think about how he'll have to see him if he gets into the Finals.

The sun sets to an airport goodbye in the Katsuki-Nikiforov household. Yuuri presses food and kisses onto Victor while Yuri complains about the latter, and then they watch Victor board the plane, waving like a royal.

There's a sad smile on Yuuri's face as he watches him go. 

"This is the longest I'll be without him since we met. He came with me to all my events this spring- it was actually really sweet."

"You two disgust me."

He grins. "We know. That's partly why we do it."


	9. Two Weddings and a Funeral

Yuuri drives a lot more safely than Victor, who takes corners like he doesn't care about pedestrians or himself. He does go noticeably slower when Yuuri's in the car, but he still hits the brakes too hard and can't parallel park for shit. Yuri's not sure if it's sickly sweet or scary that it's only Yuuri's presence that stops him from committing vehicular manslaughter every time he goes to the shops.

But Yuuri drives exactly by the book to the point where he's always exactly on the speed limit. He signals, he gives way, he makes perfect u-turns. It's like every little touch of the steering wheel matters, and it's a far cry from the speed demon that is Victor behind the wheel.

He's got better taste in music, too. There's a bittersweet love song with this incredible melody over the speakers, loud enough that conversation isn't needed but soft enough that it doesn't need concentration to love.

They sit in the quiet on the drive back, and when they get into traffic he doesn't throw his arms up like Victor would have, or swear like Yuri, just turns up the music a little to enjoy it while he can. He doesn't try to talk to Yuri, or pass round sour gummies like Victor does whenever the conversation or the traffic stalls. (It's one of the few things Yuri likes about Victor's driving.)

Yuuri just sits, soaking up the sunlight and the beat, and it's a lot like the way he moves through life, pure and unpretending.

"It's odd for me, driving like this. I used to get anxious over it....kept thinking i'd hurt somebody, or get hurt...stopped driving altogether at one point."

"Why'd you start again?"

Yuuri smiles, his eyes glowing amber in the sunset and his mind on a plane. "Victor."

He rolls his eyes. "Let me guess, he gave you special lessons, and you two were just _so in love_ that he created your secret talent for driving with his teaching, like the coach from some shitty 90's film."

He snorts. "Have you seen Victor's driving? No thank you. No, I saw how many times he fucked up and _still_ managed not to hit a pedestrian, and I figured that maybe a few mistakes didn't matter as much as I thought."

Yuri laughs. It's startled out of him, and he's scowling as soon as it's left his lips, but it makes Yuuri smile.

"Don't you dare."

"I'm not doing anything, Yuri. Just smiling."

"It's gross. Stop."

"Stop what?"

" _Ugh."_

He folds his arms and sulks out of the window for the rest of the drive. 

But it's the kind of sulking he would have pulled back in March, where his mouth slips from a scowl to tug at his lips, and he has to pull a face before Yuuri sees too deep into his eyes.

~

Victor tears giddily through the fabric of life, leaving a whirl of bright colours in his wake. Everything he does is big and bold and beautiful, even though sometimes it's unnecessary, and it means that he lights up a room. No matter the situation, everyone's laughing and usually drunk on something, whether it be alcohol or just life.

So when he's gone, it's only natural that the vibe of the flat changes. The joyous tumble of a home turns to soft happiness and quiet peace.

The sun sends rosy light into the flat as it rises the nest day, and Yuri wakes to find Niko napping on his head and Potya on his feet. The former takes offense at being shoved, and claws into his flesh with a yowl and a hiss.

"Niko, you can't give me a fucking break? Victor's not even here. If you wanted to terrorize him you should have gone to Moscow, not take it out on me. Go piss on his clothes or something."

There's a laugh from the kitchen. 

"Why the fuck are you spying on me? Shitty weirdo."

"I'm not the one talking to a cat, Yuri."

He huffs, and pads out to the kitchen in an oversized shirt that he thinks he stole from Mila at some point. Yuuri's sitting cross-legged on the luxurious sofa in a soft grey t-shirt and plaid pajama bottoms, watching coverage of the Rostelecom cup and holding a steaming mug of tea.

"And you didn't bother to make me any coffee?"

"Try again." He motions to a mug on the marble counter, and as Yuri takes a sip, he wonders how the fuck they knew his tastes. He's pretty sure that's not the kind of thing covered on the adoption papers.

"You look like shit, by the way."

He does. It's possible he looks worse than Yuri- his face is pale under the rumpled dark mess of his hair, and his glasses are askew, giving his whole face a wonky, startled look. It's only increased when he sighs and runs a shaky hand through his hair, making it even wilder; he looks like a mad scientist had a child with a very anxious owl.

"I'm worried about Victor," he confesses.

" _Seriously?"_

"What's wrong with that?"

"Your boyfriend is _Victor fucking Nikiforov._ He's won five consecutive Grand Prix and Olympics in a row, and you're worried about Rostelecom? Jesus fucking _christ_ , Katsudon."

"This is the first competition he's done since the season off, and I'm not even there to support him. He came to everything when I was competing- he only missed one event, Yuri. One. And it was because his dog almost died. But me? I'm watching his first event in a year on the TV, in my pajamas, because I don't want to ruin my own chances. What kind of fiancé am I?"

"A fucking stupid one. You might not be there in person to cheer him on, you idiot, but you're still pretty damn invested in it from where I'm standing. He knows, and I know, that you're supporting him from here; you're too disgustingly in love to be doing anything else."

Yuuri's brought up short long enough to make him stop spiraling, and he takes a shaky breath. 

"Maybe you're right."

"Bitch, I'm _always_ fucking right."

He snorts, and takes a sip of tea that somehow manages to be sarcastic. Clearly, Yuri's starting to rub off on him.

"When's his short program?"

"He's on second. And, uh, Otabek's first..."

His voice cuts through Yuuri's uncertainty like a blade. "I don't give a shit."

It's a lie. Of course it is. He knows it, so does Yuuri. But he says nothing, choosing to take another passive-aggressive sip with a raised eyebrow.

Yuri rolls his eyes, and leaves to have a shower. When he comes back, Yuuri's still on the sofa with wild hair and plaid pajama pants, but his hair is wet and his pants different colors.

"Did you just...get changed into different pajamas?"

"Yeah, I-"

"How many pairs of those same pajamas do you have?"

"Four, why?"

_What the fuck?_

"Yuuri, that's so incredibly sad. You are so _weird."_

"Shhh! It's starting."

And the booming, dramatic voice that both of them are usually on the other end of rings out, as the music starts to swell.

~

They pan the camera across the crowd, some of the cheering faces in there people Yuri can recognize; JJ's fiancée, still with him for some reason, Chris's husband, with obnoxiously large red hearts painted on his cheeks, (Yuri thinks he knows which of them suggested it,) and Mila, who's competing in the women's one and looks unsure about who to cheer on, so whoops and waves wildly whenever anyone she's ever even vaguely heard of is mentioned. 

And then they show Beka's family. 

They're holding this beautiful handmade banner and looking like they're about to explode with pride and familial love, and Yuri isn't ready for it. He nearly falls off the sofa; Yuuri has to grab his wrist to stop him tumbling to the floor in a confused bundle of blankets.

The utter adoration in their eyes is too close to what he saw in photos of himself with Otabek. It's a completely different type, but that fierce love, the overwhelming desire for Beka to succeed, to be happy, is what he saw in the mirror. What, even though he's trying as hard as he can, he still sees.

He doesn't know what emotions he's feeling right now, doesn't think he'll ever know. His eyes prick sharply with hot tears, but he's smiling, and his heart is somehow tearing apart while singing out in joy. It's all so _bittersweet._

But then they announce Beka's skate, his name tinny and mangled in the announcer's harsh accent, and they focus the camera on him, and it's the first time Yuri's seen him since the kiss, and he's so fucking beautiful.

They've done something to his hair that makes it intentionally just-had-sex, and _holy fuck he's wearing eyeliner_. He's in a white shirt with the sleeves rolled, loose at the neck and untucked slightly from his black trousers, and whenever he moves there are these perfect flashes of smooth, tanned skin that make Yuri's mind go blank, drunk on a wave of desire and white noise.

The expression on his face sends all of his earlier feelings into careering storms. Under his professional smile, meant to make fans go wild and sponsors reach for their bank details, his eyes betray a hint of nerves. The fact that you could only spot it if you loved him as much as Yuri does, as much as his family do, makes it all the sweeter.

He glances at the camera as he skates out, and even from the comforts of this sunlit room, Yuri's heart stops with knowledge of the painful truth that might hurt the most out of all the painful truths he knows. 

This is the most he's going to get from now on. Beka will never look at him like this, unguarded, in real life again. He's been reduced to longing over TV screens and articles.

The terrible, terrible voice in his head that sings memes and song lyrics at inappropriate moments flares with Gotye, and he's torn between laughter at the cliché and crying at how his life is now nothing more than the lyrics of a one-hit wonder.

This dilemma is solved as the music starts, because Otabek's routine isn't a beautiful ode to family or friendship. 

It's not a celebration of his talent like JJ, or homage to Kazakhstan like last year. 

It's not even a depiction of his life or story, how he came into the spotlight and who helped him get there.

No.

Otabek's short program revolves entirely around sex appeal, and jesus fucking _christ,_ is it working.

His slim hands are everywhere and nowhere, and you can see the lean muscles of his chest through the soaked shirt, and he glances at the camera with smoldering, half-lidded dark eyes that glow as he moves into incredible spins and step sequences.

Yuri can't think about _anything_ right now, because right now Beka's moving like sex on ice and he's heartbroken and wildly joyful and really fucking turned on.

Yuuri side-eyes him, stifling a laugh. Yuri's eyes are shining feverishly, his cheeks are pink, and his jaw's on the fucking floor. He decides it might be time to make a cup of tea, and gets up to leave. 

Yuri's too focused on the screen to notice, and he wouldn't have cared if he had. Otabek's fucking surreal- every movement would have him on the ground if he'd been standing.

But as he goes into the last jump, a quad toe loop, his skate catches, and he puts a hand on the ice. A collective groan rises into the air, and though it's one of the smallest mistakes he could have made, it's enough for the embers of desire in his eyes to fade, blown away too soon by his stumble. He skates the final few seconds with a tangible lack of emotion, and while it's unnoticed by the audience, cloaked by the remnants of his earlier appeal, it's not the sort of thing that passes the judges, and Yuri's heart twists.

His coach meets him in the kiss and cry, and even though the routine is over, Yuri's still open-mouthed at the way his muscles move over his slim back as he leans on his knees to hear the scores.

Without even knowing it, Yuri's mimicking the pose, wringing his hands in the blanket. So there they sit, identical in sitting and nerves- Yuri's sure even Otabek couldn't be more nervous than he is right now- and the thread between them might be fraying and stained, but it's not broken. Not yet.

The electronic English voice rings out, carrying with it a thousand bated breaths. 

112.68.

A high score. Incredible, even. High enough to win. 

If only Victor wasn't up next. 

If the living legend is in anything like his old condition, the best Otabek can hope for is a distant second- distant from Victor and the other competition. Yuuri comes back in, carrying a mug of coffee and one of hot chocolate. 

"How did he do?"

Yuri takes the coffee. "112.68. Looks like second place."

Yuuri nods uncomfortably, all too aware that it's his only his fiancé standing in the way of gold. "Well, second's not bad."

"Says the man who came third in both Worlds and the Olympics."

"But second in Four Continents, so you can keep quiet."

"You beat Otabek by 0.23 points. Don't go getting confident, I'm stopping you two getting married if it's the last thing I do. You'll both be insufferable."

"So we're not insufferable already?"

"Yes you are. Shut up."

"It's Victor's skate, shhh." Yuuri knots his hands in his lap, leaving his hot chocolate to grow cold.

He needn't have worried. 

Victor's short program is an explosion of joy and talent and bright colors. He laughs, he blows kisses, and he smiles, a wide beam that, for the very first time, feels genuine, and leaves no doubt in the audience's mind as to whether or not Yuuri is really having as much of an effect on him as he says in interviews.

He scores 113.69, putting himself into an indisputable first place and leaving Yuri with a boiling hatred for the judges who gave him innuendo ammunition when it's inevitably Yuri who'll have to listen to them.

But Yuuri cries, and when Victor's given a microphone and asked how he feels, he turns the entire interview into a love note to Yuuri through the screen, staring into the camera with enough sickly sweet love shining from him to make Yuri need years of dentist's appointments. Yuuri, for his part, looks this close to making out with the television.

~

He spends the rest of the day on the phone with Victor, and though he leaves Yuri the TV remote and frozen stroganoff, and though it was Yuri who told him to piss off and stop dithering to call Victor, he can't help but ache that he has nobody to call anymore.

They go to bed early, and wake up late, and don't really do anything except eat Yuuri's homemade food and watch the free skate. The rankings don't change, though Victor pulls a little further ahead and JJ manages to snatch bronze off Chris, though he's still a full six points behind Otabek. 

When they drape the gold around his neck, Victor mouths "I love you," at the camera, and Yuuri cries again, burying his head in his hands and smiling through his tears.

When they give Otabek the silver, he can't look at the lens, and Yuri feels the ragged edges of the hole, the silence where there is no "I love you," tear in his heart. 

But with Otabek and Yuri, it's the one in front of the camera who cries.

~

It's not even a tear, but the trembling of his shoulders and the way his eyes are shimmering make it painfully obvious to people who know him that Beka's trying as hard as he can not to break down on camera. 

He looks so utterly lost, even as he's standing there surrounded by thousands of screaming fans, so confused, even scared, and without even knowing it, Yuri's on his feet, reaching towards him, to do _something_ , he's not sure what. 

But it's just the screen that stares blankly back at him. 

And now he's standing bolt upright in the middle of the room, and Yuuri's watching his heart break. 

They stand together, as far apart as they could possibly be, as far apart as the distance they cleaved between them, and they're both smiling, and they're both trying not to cry, and they're both feeling more alone than they ever have. The thread between them is blossoming colours again, slowly, surely, as they mirror each other without trying, curling softly around their hearts, bringing pale golden hope and all the pain that comes with it. And though they're cities apart, worlds apart, each can feel the ghost of the other standing by his side. Crying with him. Smiling as he does.

And maybe neither of them are as alone as they feel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> words cannot describe how excited i am for Ice Adolescence asdfghjkl


	10. Two Weddings and a Funeral

He stands there in thrall as the music swells for the end, tied too deeply in his aching soul to the boy in front of him to do anything but forget entirely how to breathe. He can't think, can't hear, can't even speak. His heart's too busy twisting amongst rekindled embers, arching and screaming as the thread between them tightens to the point of agony.

But then Yuuri cuts the cord, turns it off. He's drifting free, cold and lost in the dark, and the smoldering pain of loving and being loved is nothing at all compared to the aching cold that comes with loneliness.

Yuri's a prodigy on the ice, sure-footed and sharp, but now he's stumbling. And then Yuuri's there in the icy darkness with open arms, and he's warm and soft and comforting and he lets Yuri lean his aching head on his shoulder and cry into his shirt.

He stays there for a while, swaying in the middle of the living room with Yuuri's arms around him. 

"Does it ever stop hurting?" 

He doesn't know if it's a question for Yuuri or a desperate plea to the universe that abandoned him to the night in the first place.

Yuuri kisses the top of his sweaty head, and it's the most motherly of gestures. "No."

A tiny strangled sound escapes him at the truth. Yuuri strokes his hair. "You learn how to shape yourself around it."

His eyes well up again, and he slumps against him. Because that's the thing. His soul's refusing to bend to the loss, and the pressure of his emotions is killing him. He's too full of tormented grief for anything else to soothe him.

But Yuuri's not going to stop trying.

He lets Yuri lean against him, shushes his tears and strokes his hair, and thinks that he feels things so deeply, maybe too deeply for his own good. Every tragedy tears him right down, every shred of good news sends him into a fever of excitement and joy, and he's just so _sixteen._

Under the layers of black eyeliner, death metal and swear words, he's another frightened kid who can't deal with the things in his head.

The true teenage experience is discovering that one day, your emotions are too momentous to fit in your head. You wake up one day and your mind has finally aged just enough that you become aware of the ancient shadow looming, the impossible weight of existence that's been there all along. Suddenly you're wrestling with the same dark things adults are, but without the rationale or the experience to match, and you can't ask for help because you've realized that they don't know the answers either.

The true teenage experience is when tragedy creeps up behind you and smothers you, and you're old enough to understand that, _oh, this is the worst thing that could possibly have happened._ And you're old enough to realize that nobody is coming to help. But you're young enough that you're still trusting. Your arms and heart are open, beautifully inviting the agony inside.

The true teenage experience is having the dread, the exhaustion, the hopelessness of an adult whisper in your ears like poisoned smoke, while the brain of a child cowers in terror.

The true teenage experience is being torn apart by your own emotions.

But though there's no Otabek right now to stop that from happening, there's Yuuri. There's Victor. There's Yakov, and there's Lilia, and Mila and Sara, and the Nishigoris, and somehow, after everything he's done, scattered around this chaotic, wild world there are so many people who still care about him.

The things he's going through can't be fixed with a kiss to make it better and soothing words, and turning on the lights only reveals the monster under the bed. 

But he's got time on his side, and people who'll stick by him as he tries to piece himself together again, and their smiles heal more than childhood band-aids and consolation lollipops ever did. 

So he rests his cheek against the damp patch that he's made on Yuuri's shirt, and smiles. And for the first time, maybe ever, he exhales.

~

Yuuri steers him gently to the sofa, pulls a blanket over him and presses hot tea and tissues into his hands. He doesn't try to talk things through, or force another hug, but leaves Yuri to yank his sanity out of freefall without an audience as he turns to the TV, flicking through comfort movies. He's snuffling into one of the tissues, the tea warming his hands and heart, when of all the movies, Yuuri presses play on fucking Frozen.

"You're kidding."

"What? No, I'm not."

"I might have a dead grandfather and a broken ankle, but I'm not fucking five. Even with all of this, I can still beat your ass."

"Nobody is beating my ass, except Vi-"

"Don't you fucking dare finish that sentence, Katsudon. I have enough lasting trauma as it is."

Yuuri bursts into peals of laughter. "Frozen's a great movie! And it's appropriate."

"Because I'm a talking snowman, or is it that I'm a magical ice princess?"

"I mean..."

"I'm not fucking Elsa, Katsudon, I won't hesitate to shove my knife shoes where the sun doesn't shine."

"Your...your knife shoes?" he says weakly.

"My skates, dumbass."

"Oh my god, I'm putting a lock on the cutlery drawer as soon as I get back."

"Because there's so many ways to kill a man with a fork."

"Knowing you, yes."

"You've got me there, there's actually seven."

"Yurio! I'm not even going to ask how you know that."

For once he doesn't bother protesting at the nickname, taking a sip of tea and turning to the screen. He doesn't remember it, but he must have fallen asleep, because he wakes up in his own bed the next morning. It's dark and cold outside, but the birds are still singing.

~

Yuuri has to leave for Canada the next day, and Yuri's surprised by how much he's going to miss him.

"There's frozen food in the freezer, and Makka is at the minder's, and you've got my number and Victor's if there's an emergency, and you have to remember your flight is the morning of November 1st and you need to take Niko and Potya to the minder's on Halloween-"

"Katsudon. Stop freaking out. I'm sixteen, I can handle a week of house sitting."

"Right, sorry." He pulls Yuri into a hug, and kisses the top of his head.

"Watch it."

Yuuri grins, and picks up his stuff to go. He turns hesitantly on the doorstep, his hair ruffled in the wind and his nose pink from the winter sunshine. 

"Yuuri. It'll be fine."

And it is, because the moment the door shuts, Niko loses it.

She claws the furniture, knocks over the pot plants, and climbs him and the curtains at indiscriminate intervals. He's too busy cursing and chasing and mopping and trying to fill in scratches in priceless furniture with felt tip to think, let alone feel.

Potya's no help- she watches the chaos like an empress, lazily amused every time Niko destroys an antique or custom painting. He's frantically trying to scrape up dirt as Niko rolls around in it like a dog, (he's pretty sure she's actually insane) when Potya strolls up. Her smirk is almost tangible.

"You're a real bitch, you know that, Puma Tiger Sc-"

Niko makes a leap for his lap, claws out, and he has to protect his crotch from being ripped apart. He makes a grab for her, dangling her by the scruff of her neck in front of his face.

"And _you._ You're in _big_ trouble, Niko."

He puts her in the bathroom, and shuts the door. There's muffled crashing, but he tunes it out as he tries to put the flat back to rights. It's hard- there's scratches everywhere, and dirt and shattered china all over the floor. He's just swept it all up when the phone starts to ring. It's Victor, and he holds it in place with his ear as he opens the bathroom door.

"Yurio! How are you getting on?"

Probably best not to mention that it's only been an hour, and they've lost thousands of dollars of antiques already, that the curtains are ripped to shreds, or that Victor's bed is full of cat piss.

"Good. Very good."

"...Good? That's wonderful! What are you up to now?" Victor's not an idiot. He's definitely suspicious. 

"Not much. Watching a mov- _mmph!"_

Niko's launched herself at his face in a blur of tiny kitty rage, and he has to throw his arms up to protect himself. His phone clatters to the floor as he makes a grab for her, but she claws her way to the top of his head, hissing.

He sinks to the floor, wincing as she digs her claws in, reaching for his phone. The screen's cracked, and Victor's voice is tinny and panicked as he puts it to his ear, sighing.

"-uri? Is everything okay?"

"Yup, all good. Stop- _ngh_ \- fussing, Victor." The vicious beast currently doing her best to pull his hair out says otherwise, but he's determined to look capable.

"...Okay, well..." He clearly knows something's up, but he keeps quiet. "How are the cats behaving?"

"They're...great." He spits the words out, flicking a smug Potya the finger as Niko arches her back and spits on his head.

"What, even Niko?"

He grits his teeth. "Niko's been..." she bats at his head like a threat, "...a little angel." A little fallen angel, maybe. There's a special place in cat hell for his kitten.

"Really?"

"Yeah, she's awesome. Gotta go, old man, talk soon."

He send the phone spinning across the bathroom, bracing himself to pull Niko out of his hair and for the scratches that would definitely come with it, when she hops leisurely down, pads out of the bathroom to her bed, curls up, and goes to sleep within seconds.

"You're fucking kidding me."

Potya buts her head into his hand, wanting food. 

"After that? You'd be fucking lucky."

But after he's cleaned the scratches on his his face and hands and wiped up the toothpaste she'd somehow managed to smear everywhere, he fills up their bowls, and he sits down to rewatch Frozen with a cup of tea and a sleepy Niko on his lap.

This household is starting to rub off on him.

~

The days before Skate Canada pass in a blur of slightly less chaos, though Niko still manages to piss in the closet holding all of Victor's beloved trench coats. Yuri nearly runs out of curses. He sits down to watch the short programs safe in the knowledge that she's asleep. 

Yuuri's on first, and Yuri's almost disappointed at the lack of things to mock. Usually, if Yuuri wore a waistcoat and puffy white shirt, it'd be like Christmas and at least three birthdays had come early for Yuri- he'd never let him hear the end of it. 

Unfortunately, he actually doesn't look bad. His theme is steampunk, and he's got the trademark metal goggles pushed back on his head. His hair tied up with a gold ribbon after it grew in the summer, though dark strands still fall into his face. The waistcoat, source of incredible disappointment for its lack of awfulness, is coffee-colored and decorated with tiny real bronze cogs, and the overall look is disappointingly free of things to make fun of.

So is his skate- he performs absolutely by the book. Each turn is crisp, each jump picture perfect and completely in time to the admittedly awesome music, and the final strains of the music have barely died out before there's a deafening roar from the crowd. He skates to the edge of the ice, nimbly swings himself over the barrier, and throws himself into Victor's arms.

Back in the living room, Yuri boos, and throws a handful of his M&Ms at the screen. 

Being on a different continent, they're unfazed. They kiss for so long that even the commentators are trying not to laugh, and Yuri has to laugh just a little when a flustered journalist tries to interview them and gets two responses- Yuuri winding his fingers into Victor's hair and mumbling "no comment," and Victor's middle finger to the camera as he grins into Yuuri's mouth.

Yuri has to admit, they know how to make a scene.

Eventually, harrassed-looking officials usher them from the side of the rink as they laugh and wave to the screaming audience, and Yuri rolls his eyes to keep from smiling, and tries to prepare himself for seeing Otabek. Tries being the operative word- no amount of preparation could possible stop him from flushing when they show Otabek.

The only difference is the extra button he's undone, revealing even more smooth tanned skin and making Yuri's heart flip, but it doesn't matter. He was breathtaking enough the first time. You can't top perfection. 

And Beka is perfection. He glides out onto the ice, each movement bleeding with purpose, and Yuri think that it's not him who has soldier's eyes. Otabek is ready to fight for the people he loves, for his country and for himself. Yuri skates for the medal, for the feeling of victory, and when he wins it's over and he's left alone and empty at the top. 

But now he's stepped back enough for his perspective to clear, and he can see why Beka skates, and that he deserves victory, maybe more than Yuri ever has.

Every little piece of himself that Beka lays out on the ice is snatched by a desperate Yuri and kept close to his heart- their story has run out of pages, but he's still scrabbling for scraps of words where there used to be paragraphs. 

Though the sweet, cold shock of surprise is gone, now Yuri's comfortable with Otabek's skate, with the way he moves within himself in this routine, and some of the gestures are familiar, precious sentences that Yuri's read before- the little exhale that means he's about to send Yuri (and most of the audience) reeling. He glances through his eyelashes just like that when he finishes a song and comes back to life to see Yuri staring, and when he comes into a room and leans against the wall, he rolls his hips a little as he puts his hands into his pockets in a muted version of what's making Yuri stare right now. He smiles like that across the darkness of a club when he catches sight of Yuri dancing to his songs.

To be known is to be loved, and _fuck,_ Yuri loves Otabek.

~

Apparently, the judges do too- he scores 114.72. It's beaten only by Yuri's record and Victor's old one- he has the third highest short program score in history, and he turns right to the camera as they announce it. He's breathing hard, and there's pink blossoming on his cheekbones, and though he's expressionless his eyes are glowing dimly, breaking Yuri through the screen.

You can see the victory in his eyes, and in Yuri's opinion it looks better on Otabek than it ever did on him. Right now, his cast feels like a blessing rather than a curse or a cage.

He keeps his gold and Yuuri his silver after the free skate, and with the gold medal around his neck comes the realization that no matter what, Yuri's going to have to face him at the Grand Prix Final. The knowledge doesn't hurt as much as he'd thought it would- he's almost happy about the chance to see him in reality, to see the eyes that a screen doesn't do justice. 

Time is mischievous with him as he gets ready to leave the apartment- he locks the doors against the bitter, biting cold wind, locks the windows against the winter storms of the world outside, and sends the cats, his own little winter storms, to the minders for the three days until Victor'll come and fill the place with light and color again.

The world goes quiet as he locks the door behind him and stares at this city, his city, the river shining below him in the glacial sunlight as the gulls cry above.

Maybe he's finally sober enough to see what was right in front of him, or maybe at last his pride is shattered enough to let apology seep through the cracks. 

Either way, he takes a breath, and steps into possibility.


	11. Two Weddings and a Funeral

He might have stepped into possibility, but he steps out of Beijing Daxing International airport. In Arrivals, Leo and Guang Hong are holding up a homemade sign made with more washi tape and glitter glue than can possibly be a valid artistic choice.

"Yuri!"

"Hey, Leo, Guang Hong."

"It's so awesome to have you here- I mean you've got what, 524k on Instagram?"

"Ho-how do you know that?"

"Doesn't everyone?"

"N-not usually, no."

"Some friends they are, then."

His laugh is almost startled out of him. "They're not all that bad."

Guang Hong pipes up. "You've changed, Yuri. How are you doing?"

"All right, yeah. Sorry about ruining your wedding."

"Wow, you've _really_ changed-"

"Nah, don't worry about it, man. The honeymoon made up for it." He smiles shyly at Guang Hong, taking his hand. The younger skater squeaks, blushing.

"Gross."

Leo laughs huskily. "There's the Yuri Plisetsky I know."

He's ready to drop dead with jet lag, so they take him to his hotel, as it's right near their obnoxiously bright apartment, in a late night taxi. The city lights (also obnoxiously bright) shine off the windscreen as he wonders if he can really outrun himself. 

They herd him droopily into his room and leave with grins and waves and camera flashes that he curls away from and all but hisses at, promising cheerily to take him sightseeing as soon as he wakes up.

~

It's past midday when he does, and they've already destroyed his phone with six texts each and an Instagram thread taken last night, where they're smiling brightly at the camera with peace signs and he looks like a pale blur with dark circles under his red eyes that could curve spacetime, that vaguely resembles a hungover version of the cowboy from Night at The Museum. Maybe more hungover is the appropriate comparison- the little guy's definitely on something strong already. Although in fairness, he is a queer idol-

Yuri shakes himself out of his weird sleep-deprived nightmare thought train, and texts Leo.

12:49

 _**im up** _

_let the Games begin!_

_**this isnt the fucking hunger games** _

_can't hear u, Peeta, we r coming to pick u up rn!_

**_it was literally a text leo_ **

**_you dont hear a text_ **

**_and you know id be johanna_ **

_u'd be Katniss at best, and I'm not listening to ur negativity!!!_

**_how many exclamation marks did you really need to use there_ **

_u can never have enough exclamation marks!!!!_

**_all right mr flickerman_ **

**_jesus fucking christ_ **

There's a mostly unwanted knock at his door, and he pulls the hood of his black leopard hoodie over his head to answer, in case of more sneak selfie attacks.

It's a good thing he did- he's barely opened the door when Guang Hong attempts to take another photo. Years of training mean he just barely gets out of the way in time- Guang Hong's really fucking fast when there's a possibility of the perfect selfie- and there's only a dark blur on the screen next to their smiling faces.

Guang Hong wrinkles his nose. "I mean, it represents your personality pretty well, Yuri."

"Fuck off."

He posts it.

"Fuck _off."_

They descend the grand steps of the hotel and join the river of people trickling down the street, chattering excitedly as Yuri follows just a little behind, a small smile on his face that he shoves down whenever one of them turns back.

They take him to sleek, elegant restaurants, and tiny hot pot places in back streets where the food is twice as good, and street food vendors, and drag him round every landmark they can, locking their memories into place with nonconsensual selfies at the Forbidden City, Beihai Park and Yonghe Temple and beaming the whole time. It's all a blur of bright lights and colors that slows to a stop as they stand outside the stadium in the cold night, holding steaming jiǎozi and hearing the dull screams of the crowd inside. 

Guang Hong shivers in his sheer costume, and Leo kisses him good luck, handing him his soft hoodie. The smaller boy smiles into it, whispers something in Leo's ear that leaves him blushing, then heads inside to warm up, turning to smile at him.

Yuri's breath hangs frozen in the darkness. "I'm guessing I don't want to know what he said."

Leo's tanned face is still stained red. "Um, no."

He rolls his eyes, turning to the entrance where a security guard checks their IDs and lets them through the quick way. The route is right next to the hundreds of people in the main queue, diehard skating fans who look at them like they're anything from gods to prey.

He pulls his hood up, hating how nervous their stares make him.

~

It's strange being on the other side of the barrier. Being part of the audience and not the show. He's gone from being mesmerizing to mesmerized, from having thousands of faces turned to him to being just another blank spectator.

That's not to say there aren't plenty of eyes turned to him. It'd be hard enough to escape them, being the last gold medalist and with his ankle in a thick white cast that shines out for anyone to see, screaming failure. He's not even competing, but there are enough Yuri's Angels in the audience anyway that the cameras flashing brightly amongst the seats are aimed at him almost as often as the competitors.

It doesn't help that he's sitting right in the middle of what Chris dubbed the Boyfriend Bench, the center front row that's always filled with anxious other halves who more often than not are competing themselves. Halfway through last year's banquet, a slightly drunk JJ had roped a completely wasted Mila into campaigning with him to rename it the Spouse Seat, but surprisingly the name never caught on. It's the Boyfriend Bench forever now, and it confuses new skaters and journalists and no matter which stadium they're at always smells faintly of too-sweet expensive perfume. Yuri blames JJ's fiancée.

He's between Leo and Phichit, rays of sunshine with their boyfriend's merch everywhere they can wear it. Phichit's even painted his face with the Korean for Seung Gil, and Yuri's starting to get worried because he's _seen_ Leo on the Ji-de la Iglesias Amazon account. He's _seen_ the Guang Hong underpants in the basket. 

Yuri's wearing all black. He isn't anyone's boyfriend. He stands out sharply, drawing in eyes and minds without trying, but the stares make his throat ache, and the whispers make his eyes prickle.

So he gets up to leave, to break his promise to himself and find yet another strange toilet to cry in, when Leo's warm hand wraps around his wrist. 

He smiles warmly. "Where are you going?"

The words make his tears start to well up, and he mumbles, "Not exactly a Boyfriend, am I?"

"What are you talking about? You're an honorary Ji-de la Iglesias now!"

He's shocked out of trying not to cry. 

A laugh escapes him. "...What?"

"Not like that, but as our guest. And...as our friend."

Yuri doesn't really have friends any more. 

He's close with Mila, siblings close, but she's never actually called him her friend. She's more like an older sister. Victor and Yuuri undeniably care about him, sometimes too much, and so do Yakov and Lilia, but they're all misguided parent figures, not people his age who he can just be _sixteen_ with. The last of those was Beka.

And then he fucked up irreparably. And then he had nobody. And then he was back to being nine and being the problem child. He was back to being friendless, kept around by adults solely because of his talent. 

But now Leo, who he'd never even been that close with, is offering friendship like it's nothing, like it's obvious. 

Maybe he has more friends than he realized.

~

He watches the footage of the competition on the plane to Japan. The shot where he's losing it has him in the background as a spectator- anyone watching it could only tell if he's about to cry if they know what that looks like.

Yuuri's going to mother him like hell when he touches down.

He skips further forwards to the awards ceremony, watches Chris, Seung Gil and Guang Hong take gold, silver and bronze and then skate in tandem to the Boyfriend Bench and throw themselves on their other halves as the tiny Yuri on the screen rolls his eyes. He feels for himself.

Then the pilot's voice comes over the intercom, announcing "a bit of upcoming turbulence." 

It's a bit like calling Victor "a bit extra," or JJ "a bit self-obsessed." The entire plane drops twenty feet, serious businesspeople startled into shrieks around him. It then begins a nightmare of shaking and tilting and sudden drops, with calm periods that lull him into a false sense of security just when the cabin rolls beneath him. 

People are screaming and laughing hysterically, and there's spilt coffee trickling down the aisle like blood, stale and bitter, and his heart is thudding in his ears. His breath is coming sharp and shallow- he's close to tears over some turbulence, and he feels utterly pathetic.

Yuri tries to remember what Yakov told him when he flew for the first time at eleven, to Cairo for a competition, but the only thing that comes to mind is his coach telling him off for trying to order vodka. _Guess he'll die, then._

He hangs on to his armrests till his knuckles go white, screws his eyes closed and turns up his music, resigning himself to death by airborne ball of flame. He's a good flier nowadays- he does it too often not to be, for competitions and press events- but he staggers off the other end green-faced and shaking.

He's looking so hard for Yuuri that his traumatized brain doesn't register the huge group of people waiting for him. There's Yuuri's parents, even rounder and more smiley than last year, and Yuuko with her husband and seven year olds, and Yuuri's sister and his ballet teacher. She's cut off her blond tips, and now her hair looks just like Yuuri's used to, before it grew to his jawline. And there's Yuuri, waiting with his hands in his pockets. He's smiling shyly, but he looks at home amongst his family and friends, relaxed and happy.

Yuri drops his luggage and his pride, and staggers into Yuuri's arms, trembling. 

He buries his face in his shirt, which is warm and comforting (he might never leave) and shuts his mouth, because he's either going to cry or throw up if he doesn't.

"They told us your flight was pretty bad."

He nods into the shirt.

"Are you all right?"

He rests his head on Yuuri's shoulder and speaks quietly and evenly. "I'm trying _so_ hard not to throw up on you right now."

Yuuri laughs. "Is my love and support making you sick?"

"I just got tossed around in a metal tube for two hours, let me live. Asshole."

Yuuri steers him to a bench and lets him put his head between his knees and swear for fifteen minutes while Mari and Minako take his luggage to the car. Once the world's stopped spinning, he sits up cautiously. 

That caution is thrown to the wind as Yuuko tackles him in a hug. "Yuri-kun! It's so good to see you, you weren't replying to my texts! I'm sorry about your grandfather-"

"Get off, I _will_ vomit on you-" he shoves her away, but nods. "I had... a lot of things going on. I'll reply from now on."

"Awesome! Oh, have you seen Axel, Lutz and Loop? They've grown so much!" The triplets spring up right next to him, looking like they've been stretched upwards by some invisible force.

"Jesus fucking Christ, you're nearly as tall as me."

"Yuri, don't swear, we're a PG-13 channel!"

He turns to Yuuko, indignant. "They're streaming this?"

She sighs. "I've tried to stop them, sorry."

Yuuri laughs. "They've not been recording everything, but they got a great shot of your green face coming off that plane."

"Fuck." _Well, that's something to look forward to seeing over every skating site in a few days._

Hiroko comes over, smiling. "Home now, everyone!"

"Am I not staying at a hotel or something?"

"Don't be ridiculous, Yuri. You're _family."_

_Oh._

~

He travels with the Nishigoris, and Yuuko gestures cheerfully as she talks, explaining everything that's happened.

Hasetsu's been coming back to life since last year, opening up and blossoming like a rose after snow. It gained renown in the skating world as Yuuri and Victor did, and as it did young couples with skating backgrounds started to move in, entranced by the soft touch of fame and the beauty of the city in the sunlight.

Now the streets are full of children laughing, and businesses are starting to open up again. Coffee shops, restaurants, florists and record stores and art shops, and even a few of the hot springs.

Ice Castle and Minako's studio are full of kids who genuinely adore skating, and shy parents trying to remember childhood lessons. None of it's changed as much as Yu-Topia, though. The place where Victor Nikiforov came to stay, where he fell in love...the skaters in Hasetsu can't get enough, and they've grown to match, adding more rooms and pools and decorating it all with their trademark Japanese look. 

They've even employed a young couple to help with the guests, who take Yuri's bags with real smiles and take them to his room. He's oddly touched when he realizes he's in one of the Katsuki's rooms, not one reserved for paying guests.

Hiroko envelops him in a hug, his head on her shoulder. "You poor boy, that flight looked really nasty. Are you hungry? How about a bath?" 

He wonders if this is what it would have been like if his grandmother had lived long enough to meet him. "I'll take a bath, if that's okay."

He rejects Yuuri's offer of company and heads to the hot springs, resting his head on the side of the onsen and letting the heat draw the bitter scent of terror and stale coffee out of his body like tears. Eventually, he falls asleep, worn out by the emotion of the day, and wakes with a jolt to find Yuuri hovering right next to his face.

"Fucking hell, katsudon, you nearly gave me a heart atta..."

Yuuri winces. "Sorry."

"Don't fuss about it. People never _stop_ fussing."

"Yeah, I know." He sighs. "It's shit, isn't it." It's not a question.

"Did Katsuki Yuuri just swear? What will Victor think?"

"Oh, fuck off. It's dinner, by the way." He ruffles his hair, then goes inside as Yuri scowls after him.

Hiroko piles delicious dishes onto Yuri's plate even as he eats, insisting that he's too skinny and needs feeding up, while Yuuri makes sure he's warm enough in the soft green Yu-Topia robe and doesn't need to go to bed, and their worried love leaves him full and warm and sleepy. 

He can feel his head drooping and his eyes starting to close, but he's too exhausted to register Yuuri picking him up and putting him to bed until he's slipping out of the door.

There's going to be hell to pay in the morning, but for now he closes his eyes and sinks into soft darkness.

~

As it turns out, hell was not paid. 

The Katsukis leave him to sleep until noon, when the Nishigoris arrive, threatening a joint family day out. Well, joint family, a ballet teacher and an angry teenage intruder.

Hiroko suggests they spilt up, and Yuuri and Yuuko drag him around bakeries and florists and coffee shops all desperately trying to be hipster, until he manages to persuade them to walk down the street full of cheap market stalls where he bought his beloved tiger sweater.

"Yuri-kun, are you sure this is where you want to shop?"

"One hundred percent. This stuff is so much more original than those try-hard stores back there."

Yuuri coughs. "It's also shitty and cheap."

"Oh, sorry, now you're a fashion expert?"

"He does have a bit of a point, Yuri-kun..."

"That shirt literally looks like Phichit-kun's ice show died on it."

He gestures to a pastel monstrosity decorated with kawaii hamsters that got printed on funny and morphed into something horrific. 

"What do you know? It's only 100¥, I'm getting it."

"You've got to be joking."

He's not, and the look on Yuuri's face when he hands over the money is almost worth the knowledge that he's going to have to burn it later. It happens again and again, over a pair of shorts with BAD ASS written on the butt, a Kermit beanie and a pair of high heeled purple Converse. They're so awful that he's seriously considering falling in love with them.

Yuuko gets fed up of Yuri spite-buying hideous clothes after a while and drags them to a coffee shop, ordering herself a latte and Yuuri an americano.

"What about you, Yuri-kun? Ooh, I know, let me guess! Espresso?"

He mumbles something that only Yuuri catches.

He smiles innocently. "Sorry, what did you say, Yuri?"

 _God_ , Yuri hates him. He mumbles it a bit louder, glaring.

He's beaming, the asshole. "Didn't quite catch that, could you say it a bit louder?"

"I said I want a fucking white chocolate mocha, okay?!"

There's a peal of laughter from behind him, and he turns, ready to commit a felony. But it's a boy, probably about his age, with dark curls and soft brown eyes. 

The boy bites his lip. "Sorry."

"Yeah, you fucking will be."

The boy smiles, rubbing the back of his neck, and hesitates. "I don't usually do this, but...you want me to get it for you?"

It's been over a month of Yuri completely failing to get over Otabek. He knows for sure now that his feelings aren't returned, and even more painful, that it's his own fault he's alone. Beka did exactly what he wanted, and now he's moved on, he's winning competitions again, and he's blossoming without Yuri. 

Even if Yuri's dying without him.

And here's this boy, with nice eyes and a gorgeous smile, who's sweet and charming and wants to buy him coffee. He'd have to be an idiot to refuse.

"No. I don't." 

Yuri turns and stalks out of the coffee shop with furious tears in his eyes, hating himself, _hating_ himself. He's not an idiot. He's just heartbroken. This is the first time Yuri's wanted to forget Otabek. And he wants it so badly. He's trying so hard and it hurts so much, and it _aches_ whenever he thinks about him because he knows the truth. 

Beka's not coming back. Ever. 

Yuri told him to leave, and he did what he was told and now he's moved on and he's figured out how to live, how to be happy. Without Yuri. 

Beka's not coming back. Ever.

So why can't he just move on?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i realized that somewhere along the way i stopped editing this so if you see a steady decline in quality after around chapter six then close your eyes


	12. Two Weddings and a Funeral

Yuri's slumped on a bench, staring at the river, when Yuuri makes his way over, bundled up against the cold but his nose still pink.

"Was he really that bad?"

"Leave me alone." He turns away, trying to hide his red eyes and pale, tearstained face.

"Not a chance." Yuuri sits next to him, cross-legged with his feet tucked up neatly.

He rolls his eyes, ignoring the tears that well up in them, and keeps staring into nothing. Time passes; he's not sure how much, and eventually, he feels like he has to explain himself. "He was cute, it's just..."

"Don't worry. I know."

"He probably thinks I'm an asshole."

"You are an asshole. Most of the time. And he doesn't, surprisingly- he was asking what he did wrong. Sweet kid. Yuuko had to explain that you were mentally unbalanced."

"Ha, ha."

"If you want to...I think he's still interested."

The words make him flinch a little, but he can't help thinking that at least he _knows_ now. That his panic wasn't just a shocked reaction, that storming out wasn't just because he was unprepared. That he's still in love with his best friend.

"I don't want to." 

Yuuri gives a sympathetic smile that makes him tense up. "That's fine, too. It's all about what you feel ready for."

"Spare me the therapist bullshit. I don't feel ready for fucking anything, but I still do shit."

"Yeah... I guess you do."

He leans against Yuuri's shoulder, going back to staring at the river. "Like how... I don't feel ready for the Final."

"You'll still go, I know you. You said it yourself." 

~ 

Hiroko hugs her son tightly, pressing kisses all over his squirming face as he laughs, "Stop it, mom! I'm 25 in three weeks, I don't need you fussing over me." But he hugs her back tightly, kissing her cheek. 

"You be safe in Osaka, okay? And we'll take good care of your Yuri." 

Yuuri stifles a laugh as Yuri flips him the bird from behind Hiroko's back, mouthing _I'm not your fucking Yuri._

_You can't escape it now._

He rolls his eyes, smiling like a traitor as Yuuri disentangles himself from his mother and envelops Yuri in a hug. He's warm and soft, and he finds himself clinging to him, burying his face in his shirt. 

"You'll be fine, okay? My mother will feed you whenever she can and probably even when she can't, and Yuuko's coming over on her days off." 

"I don't need Yuuko to play fake fucking friends with." 

"But I don't hear you complaining about the food part." 

"All right, you've got me there." 

Yuuri ruffles his hair, making him hiss like Niko does, and lets go, smiling in farewell. He turns at the gate, waving, and Hiroko wells up with pride. Her husband wraps his arm around her shoulders as Mari kisses her cheek, and the Nishigoris cling together, crying with Minako.

He stands a little off to the side. 

But Hiroko sees him looking lost, and moves out of Toshiya's embrace to stand next to him, looking after Yuuri. She hugs him gently, her plump arms warm around his aching chest. "He'll be just fine. And so will you, I promise, Yurio."

"You know that's not my name."

But he doesn't have it in him to be angry with Hiroko. 

It's not some miraculous return to his prickly self- he tends to stare off into the distance a lot now, pulling at the edge of his cast, and the Katsukis keep telling him he looks angry. His face was always moving too much to rest, but now it's becoming clear he's got a mad case of resting bitch face. It's a good thing, really; more often than not he's thinking about Otabek, or his grandfather, and it makes his emotions curl up and die in his chest, a distressing tangle of regret, grief, hope and love. It's easier to feign anger, and when he's too numb to try, his face comes in handy.

He's pretty sure Hiroko can see through it, though- she presses food and cuddles on him whenever he finds himself spacing out, and makes sure he's warm and safe and happy, and he recognizes a lot of the careful motions and comfort phrases she uses in softly accented English. 

It's what Yuuri says, what Yuuri does, when he's angry or sad. He's about to FaceTime him, to snark about originality in parenting and laugh about how Yuuri's turning into his mother, when he realizes that it _works._

~

She does it again when it's time to watch the free skate, tugging him into the cozy, chaotic pile of people in front of the television. Yuuri's currently in second after Phichit, but it doesn't stop them hugging tightly before each of their routines. 

Hiroko knots her fingers together tightly as he steps onto the ice, leaning into Toshiya as the music starts. It's a minor piece with a stilted melody, interspersed with the clicks and squeaks of machinery, whistles and clangs of metal that somehow blend in and pull it together. 

Yuuri'd explained his free skate, smiling awkwardly, as they gulped water after Yakov had forced them to do conditioning. It matches perfectly with the steampunk theme of his short program. Four quads, complicated step sequences in the first half and these incredible, elegant spins in the second...if he can pull this off he stands a chance of breaking his record. He's dedicated each performance to different people, slipped them into the story of himself. Skate Canada was for his friends. This is for his family. And if he makes it there, the Grand Prix Final skate will only be for Victor.

The story behind it is that Yuuri's a mechanic, spending his life hidden away amongst automatons. Brass and steel replacing family and friends, the success of a completed machine replacing the comfort of human touch. He's almost clockwork himself. But he's happy, or so he thinks, smeared with black grease and with a wrench in his hand. 

And then one day people come into his workshop, and sit themselves down amongst the glowing copper, and open his eyes. 

The melody evens out, the metallic sounds fading, and his movements soften along with his heart, the intricate step sequences becoming graceful spins as he discovers his heart hidden amongst the clockwork. 

The music builds slowly, perfectly, as he goes into a incredible spin, a smile on his face, and next to him Hiroko's crying, and he's trying so hard not to, because it's so fucking clear that Yuuri's thinking of them as he makes history. That, to Katsuki Yuuri, family is everything.

And that he includes Yuri in his family.

He wins gold.

~

They wave Yuri off at the airport for his flight to Alpes–Isère Airport, piling on top of him and strangling him with affection. He grumbles and sulks with enough cursing that Yuuko smacks him round the back of the head. The Nishigoris force grudging promises to stay in touch out of him, Hiroko presses a bento and a hug onto him, and Minako and Toshiya both take his offered handshake. They treat him like an adult, someone who matters, and it's what he's been trying to achieve since he started competing.

The flight to France takes him 13 hours, and he spends it rewatching the Grand Prix coverage, drifting in and out of sleep. He dreams, in that hazy way you do as you float somewhere in your own consciousness. 

The screen playing the Grand Prix as he sleeps means his dreams are all distorted, dark mirrors of the real competitions. People skate alternatively to screams and hysterical laughter, the medals are all wedding rings, and every time he turns Beka's there, just out of reach on the ice.

When he stares into the airport bathroom mirror after touchdown, he's once again looking like a corpse. 

It might as well just be true at this point.

But he forces himself to splash icy water on his face and stagger into a taxi, wobbling with motion sickness and jetlag.

He's astonished the driver can understand any of the address he reads out off the crumpled piece of paper, (fuck, he's astonished he can understand it- he'd scribbled it down at the end of the day he'd spent planning all of this, sitting cross-legged on the living room floor in his pajamas while Yuuri and Victor avoided his caffeine-fueled intense travel planning,) but he eventually pulls up outside Yuri's hotel.

Yuri barely makes it onto his bed before falling face-first into sleep. 

He wakes up late the next day, pale light streaming through the windows and snow on the mountains through the window. It sets the tone for his whole visit; in France Yuri finally does what he'd promised himself. He heals. 

A bit, at least.

He wanders around during the day taking pictures in the winter sun, eats in tiny, family-owned restaurants and sits on frosty benches or the side of beautiful sculptures while he calls people to make sure that they know he's okay, because they might be clingy and overprotective, but they care.

When the sun sets he pulls the Nishigori triplet's scarf around his neck, avoids the tipsy college students, and walks home through the cold nights, and sleeps with no dreams. The days stretch out long and peaceful in front of him, quiet and steady, and each has a purpose. He watches Internationaux de France in person. He gets his cast removed. 

And when he looks into the mirror this time, he's at least looking like a person. A little older, a little more empty, but definitely still alive.

~

Victor had decided that a stay in Lake Placid for ten days might actually have killed them, so he booked a hotel in Manhattan and arranged a five hour drive to Lake Placid the day before, and straight back the day after. 

Yuri's not so sure it's a good idea; sure, if he had to choose between Manhattan and a tiny village that runs on ice hockey, he's pretty sure he knows the better option. But ten hours in a car with Victor? One of them's going to be dead by the time they get to the other end, and he's pretty fucking sure it won't be him.

The belief is only backed up when he sees Victor standing in Arrivals with a horrifically large custom banner that must have cost him hundreds of dollars.

He waves enthusiastically. "Yurio! Over here!"

He tries to storm over, but his luggage makes it more of a frustrated flop. "That's not my name, old man, and just because your fiancé made it into the final doesn't mean I couldn't have beaten both of your asses."

"The only person beating my ass is-"

"Oh my god, you're just as bad as each other."

Victor looks delighted. "He said that about me?"

"I want to kill you. Like right now. Just strangle you in the middle of this airport."

"You're not allowed. It would make Yuuri sad, and it's also a little bit illegal."

He growls in frustration, and drags his bags away, but doesn't get far before Victor catches up. "You don't know where we're going, do you."

"Yes, I do." 

He doesn't.

"See, I don't think you do, because you're headed back to France."

He turns to him. "You better shut your fucking mouth, before I shut it for you." He's only half-joking.

"Shut up. You're probably really jet-lagged, but I need you to ignore it, because I got us tickets to so many awesome things and I'm not cancelling just so you can sleep."

"It better actually be awesome."

He produces a fan of tickets for everything from Broadway productions to the old Renwick smallpox hospital to Coney Island to cat cafes. 

"Will this do?"

"You're...not actually as lame as I thought. Maybe."

"I'll take that as a 'I love you, Victor! You're like my own father! Thank you so much, sir!'"

"Sir?"

"Nobody shows me any respect in this house."

"We're in an _airport,_ Victor."

Over the next ten days, they go to everything Victor'd bought tickets for, screaming and laughing and eating street food and taking pictures the whole way. Yuri's Instagram blows up, and he gets all caps screaming texts from Leo, Guang Hong, and Phichit, all within ten minutes of posting. 

Victor's surprisingly sufferable, though he poses too much and insists on sending Yuuri all the reject selfies, sticking cat graphics on all of the Yuri's and heart stickers on all the Victors' eyes while they eat ramen in Central Park.

The car ride is predictably painful- he actually has to get out of the car and walk the last two miles, muttering in disgust, and ends up destroying a sign with a big stick that he'd snatched off the side of the road- but Victor, to add insult to injury, proceeds to piss Yuri off even more. First by winning Skate America, then by playing Beyoncé on repeat during the ride back, and finally by spending the evening back at the hotel, flirting so hard with Yuuri over FaceTime that Yuri's ears might actually bleed. He escapes to the pool, floating on his back and gazing up at the stars.

A notification disrupts him, and he swims over to check his phone. It's an article with the lineup for the Grand Prix Final, photos for each competitor. Yuri remembers doing that shoot at the beginning of the season- they'd all done it on the chance they made it in. 

It was meant to be a serious shoot; plain backgrounds and classy black-and white photos, but somehow they've managed to make each photo seem like color with the way their personalities are showing through; Phichit's making peace signs and beaming, and Chris has his arms draped around himself, staring straight at the camera with smoky, half-lidded eyes. Victor and Yuuri both have the other's hand in shot, holding theirs, and JJ's unsurprisingly pulled his signature move.

But it's the photo of Otabek he can't take his eyes off. 

He's standing there, a half-smile tugging at his lips, and he's heartbreaking in the suit they were all told to wear. His hands are in his pockets and he's looking at the camera and all Yuri can think is that Otabek was wrong, that it's his eyes worth metaphors. They're soft and dark and _gorgeous_ and the camera could never do them justice, but they're still enough to make Yuri stop breathing even through a screen, and _he's going to see Otabek._

For the first time since they kissed, he's going to have Otabek in front of him.

And he'll be warm and living and beautiful enough to stop Yuri from breathing, and he doesn't know whether he's excited or absolutely terrified. 

Probably both.

But there's two things he does know. 

That kissing Otabek was the worst mistake of his life, that it ruined his skating and his friendships, ripped everything he could possible care about away from him and left him lost and alone and _aching._

And that he wants to do it again more than anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> writing this chapter was like dragging yuri to a hairdressers because my motivation decided to give up on me this week  
> sorry for the noticeable drop in quality


	13. Two Weddings and a Funeral

Eleven days later, he's standing in front of the Nagoya Civic General Gymnasium, Japan, with Victor and Yuuri by his side. It's the morning of the Final, and he's closer to Otabek than he's been since the kiss. He can practically feel it, the ache lessening in his chest. He's right inside the stadium, less than a hundred meters from Yuri's heart, and it shines through the cold in response.

Yuuri's shivering in his weird steampunk waistcoat, and Victor drapes his team Russia jacket and then his arm around his shaking shoulders. Yuri fake gags, which earns him a light hit to the back of the head. 

But then the three of them turn to the stadium together, the screams of the crowd piercing through the cold, and this, right here, is the moment. 

In front of them lies the future in all its beautiful uncertainties, and behind memories they can never relive. This is the coin's edge, the throwing of the die, the revelation of the tarot.

Victor's breath is frozen smoke in the air. "So, this it it, then."

Yuuri kisses his cheek. "Good luck."

He kisses him back, soft and loving. "You too; you win gold for us. I want the whole world to know how incredible you are."

Yuri rolls his eyes. "I hope you both get disqualified for public indecency."

But they walk through the doors together, and all the press in the building have a meltdown. There's blinding flashes going off in their faces, a lack of personal space that makes Yuri want to shove some fluffy microphones up some asses, and a jarring chorus of voices asking the same intrusive questions over and over until he's ready to scream.

The result is a collection of photos that manage to grace every skating site within an hour, in which Victor and Yuuri look so perfect they could be gay stock photos, and he's staring furiously into the lens with red eyes and rumpled hair. 

He looks absolutely ruined, and he hadn't even been crying. 

Maybe it's just a permanent state now.

~ 

Squished on the Boyfriend Bench as they watch the free skate, Yuri's finally figured out why JJ's fiancée stays with him. It's because, somehow, she's even more fucking annoying than he is. God knows what their kid's going to be like. She's been chattering brightly in his ear about JJ's training and JJ's schedule and JJ's costumes and even JJ's high-fucking-protein diet for the last twenty minutes, over everyone's skates, and he's going to kill her before another one passes. 

That is, if Seung-Gil doesn't do it first. On her right, Chris's husband is managing it, nodding and smiling whenever she opens her mouth, but Seung-Gil's sitting between her and Yuri, unwillingly acting as a defense for both of them. His occasional mumbling has morphed into a stare that tells Yuri he's wishing himself anywhere else. 

Even Chris's mild-mannered husband politely asks to her to be quiet when they announce Chris's scores, and she sulks while the announcer reads them out. 

198.76. It didn't break 200, but it's a new personal best, and the crowd goes wild as he pounces on his husband, kissing down his neck, hands places they really shouldn't be on television. 

He's currently in third with a total score of 301.85, just beating Phichit, with Yuuri and JJ left to skate. Victor's exploded ahead on 336.12, a new world record he happily insists is Yuuri's influence, and Yuri still hasn't recovered from Otabek's skate. He's not sure he ever will. 

He had Yuri- and the whole audience- incapable of functioning for two and a half minutes as he swirled around the ice, enticing the whole world with those incredible smoky eyes, and clearly the judges were just as helpless against him, because his total score ended up being 303.57, beating his previous record by more than ten and seeing him rise to fifth in the world. He was unbelievable on the ice, and all of a sudden Yuri was faced with how helplessly in love he still is, and how there was absolutely nothing he was fucking brave enough to do about it. 

The only option left was to get viciously lost in the middle distance until the whole thing was over. 

Yuri's staring into space, deep in memories of warm lips and cold hands, gorgeous eyes that glow softly, and how it felt watching them go dark because of him, when there's a sharp elbow in his ribs. He turns to Seung-Gil, ready to curse him out for ruining his pity party, but the look on his face stops him. 

He turns.

And standing in front of him is Otabek, pink blooming on the tops of his cheekbones from his skate, and he's looking unsure and awkward and so, so beautiful.

He came into Yuri's life the first time as a shock, pulling up on his bike with the wind in his hair and the scent of adventure clinging to him, and Yuri knew, right there, that he never could resist a story. That he'd lead him into mystery after mystery. That they'd follow each other into danger and excitement and the dizzy wild joy that comes with being free. 

And that maybe Otabek was the most compelling adventure of all.

Perhaps it's only fitting that he's a shock the second time too.

~

"Can we talk?"

"I...uh, yeah." He gets out of his seat, light headed with disbelief, and follows him numbly outside. 

It's snowing, soft white flakes falling from the pale sky and landing in Otabek's dark hair, clinging to his long lashes as he turns to Yuri.

"How are you?"

Yuri laughs brokenly. "How do you think?"

He shrugs, helpless. "You didn't text..."

"I didn't know what to say." 

Otabek smiles bitterly. The awkwardness hangs in the air like poison, making their words sharp with regret.

"I think I do now." 

Yuri's heart is in his mouth, eyes and soul full of Beka.

"I shouldn't have left you alone, and I shouldn't have got angry. You kissed me because...because you were drunk, and it was a mistake for me to let my emotions get in the way of how I took it. I want to be friends again."

He's painfully aware that Beka's trying to give him an explanation. He's trying to salvage Yuri's ruined pride, to gift him the excuse of being drunk and not just in love, because he's a genuinely kind person. 

But he thinks he's finally stopped needing excuses. And his heart will crush him if he carries it alone any longer. 

He has to try.

"Beka...I didn't fucking kiss you because I was _drunk_. I- I did it because...I'm so incredibly in love with you, you idiot, and I have been since Barcelona, and...and when you weren't there it sucked so fucking much, because I _missed_ you, dumbass. And look, I fucking know, all right? That I don't deserve you, and that you don't feel the same way, but-"

And then soft lips press against his own.

His mind goes blank.

Otabek pulls back. "I've been in love you since I was thirteen."

This can't be real. It _can't_ be. Because Beka's standing right in front of him with a pink nose and snow in his hair, and he's smiling at Yuri like a winter sunrise. He's just kissed him. This is all so clearly a dream, or maybe he's finally died.

But either way, there's only one thing to do.

So he kisses him. 

Maybe to check if it's real, or maybe because he knows it's not, but either way _Yuri's kissing Otabek_ , winding his arms around his neck, and his lips are warm as the snow falls around them. He makes a startled noise, then melts into it, tracing Yuri's cheekbone with a freezing thumb. Beka deepens the kiss, noses bumping softly, and he can't help smiling against his lips.

He's crying too. He was ruined for too long, something broken in his chest that _ached._ And now it's over, and he's free, and Otabek's here holding him. This is the happy ending he'd been looking for amongst shards of bloody glass and pyrite medals. A kiss in the snow.

But maybe it's not an ending.

Maybe it's just a beginning.

~

Eventually, he pulls back, unsteady with bliss. "You said...you said I knew how you felt about me."

Beka traces his face softly. "I thought it was clear."

"It fucking wasn't."

"So when you kissed me, I thought..."

"You thought I was drunk and using your feelings because I was lonely, you fucking _idiot."_

He half-laughs. "I...maybe."

"You are." He leans his head on Otabek's warm shoulder, face in his shirt so it muffles his voice breaking. "You're so fucking stupid...I missed you so much.."

Otabek takes his face gently between his hands so Yuri has to look at him, and kisses him like he's the most precious thing in the world. "Fuck, Yura, me too. Sofia came close to murdering me for all the moping."

He pulls back and looks at him, one eyebrow raised. "Your sister is fucking awesome, and, as usual, she was completely right." 

He laughs, and Yuri's so unbelievably screwed, because it's fucking beautiful. 

So he surrenders, tugging the front of Beka's shirt and pulling him into another kiss, winding his hands into his dark hair. The snow eddies slowly over them from a pearly sky as Otabek pulls him closer, cold hands circling his waist gently, and Yuri gasps a little against his mouth, drinking in his warmth, the way he goes weak under Beka's soft touches. He's about to push him against the wall and kiss him until their lips are bruised when there's a rush of noise from inside.

Otabek turns. "That's the sound of a gold medal."

The realization hits. "Yuuri's skate just finished."

Without another word, he seizes his hand and races inside, pulling Beka through the hallways like a competition until he finds his feet and overtakes him. Beka glances back as Yuri's searching for a return, but a smirk sets his senses on fire, melting his silver tongue until it drips with molten sugar, and he ends up just pushing him against a window and crushing their lips together. 

Otabek melts into it, then flips them deftly. And then there's heat and skin, and their hands are everywhere, and he's everywhere. Beka's the only thing he can feel, the slim strength of him against Yuri, the gentle, insistent touches that pull soft noises from somewhere deep in his chest. He can't help but pull him closer, hands pleading down his back.

And then just as suddenly he's gone, the only sign he was ever the sweetness on Yuri's lips, smiling at him from the stairwell like a breath of fresh air.

"Now _I'm_ getting there first."

He swings himself nimbly over the banister, skidding out of sight with a grin, and Yuri has to take a few seconds to remember how to think. He pulls himself together with glee, the fire of a competition starting to blossom in his chest again, and sprints down the stairs.

"Asshole! That wasn't fair!"

A delighted laugh echoes up from the floors below. He almost throws himself down the last flight of stairs, and Otabek's waiting, grinning.

"I won."

He gives him the finger at the same time he takes his hand.

~

The screams of the audience are deafening as he opens the doors, Beka by his side. On the giant board overhead, amber numbers flash 336.28. 

That's a gold medal. 

That's a second world record. 

There's a hiccup from the rinkside, and he spins to see Yuuri clinging to Victor, sobbing into his shirt as Victor strokes his hair, beaming. He looks back at Beka, who throws him an encouraging smile, then rushes over and throws himself on them. 

Victor's arms go around them as he elbows Yuuri. "What are you crying for? You just made history, Katsudon."

He gives a happy sob, throwing his arms around Yuri's shoulders. "Oh, come here."

Yuuri sobs into his hair until Victor finally answers Yuri's indignant muffled cries and pries him off, and then clings to him instead. 

"We're getting married.."

Victor's smile could have lit up the world. "We are. Yurio, want to be flower boy? Ring bearer?"

"Oh, fuck off."

It does hurt that they're still treating him like a kid, but the fact that they're thinking about him for their wedding means something to Yuri.

It's evidence they care, to be trusting him with a role in the ceremony, even if it is a joke.

"Then how about best man?"

He's brought up short by Yuuri's smile. "Wha- really?"

He takes Victor's hand, the two of them beaming. "Really. We thought it over and decided there's nobody we'd want more."

He's beaming, his tears a betrayal in his eyes. "I hate this sappy shit."

Yuuri bursts into peals of laughter. "Sure you do."

He scowls, burying his face in Yuuri's shirt to hide the joy on his face. "I guess I have to do it now, then, don't I?"

"You really haven't got a choice."

But they all know that if he had, he wouldn't have had it any other way.

The reporters sense enough time has passed for interviews to be considered humane like sharks scenting blood, and pounce. Fluffy microphones are shoved into their faces, the reporters' knuckles white with predatory excitement on notebooks.

"You're now the top skater in the world, how do you feel?" ("Overwhelmed, mostly. It sounds like something in a news article, doesn't it? Not quite real.")

"What's it like having broken Victor Nikiforov's longtime record? You're the only skater to beat him in competition in six years, how do you think it will affect your relationship as his fiancé?" ("I love Victor, and I know he loves me. I think the only effect this will have is that now we can finally show the world how much, and get married." This sentiment was accompanied by loud, enthusiastic gagging sounds from Yuri.)

"How do you feel about the internet calling you "the Gold Medal Family?" Would you say it removes from the three of yours individualities?" ("Victor and I think it's great! We'd say that the achievements of people you love are something that needs to be celebrated! I'm not so sure Yuri likes the name, though.")

Eventually they recede, satisfied by the heart and soul Yuuri's poured onto their pages, and the so-called Gold Medal Family disentangle. He tries to be surreptitious as he makes his way over to Beka. 

They don't want people to know yet. For now, what they have is precious and fragile and _theirs._

It's not something to be sold to the packs of slavering reporters, or used for Instagram followers, or even sighed over by Victor, the hopeless romantic, or critically appraised by cynical Mila. 

Yuri wants something to be his, only his, for once in his life, and he doesn't care if that's selfish. He just wants to be sixteen, and in love, without an audience. He wants to be able to hold his hand without people asking questions, to kiss him without it being everywhere the next day.

He doesn't think that would be so much to ask for. 

If only his miracle wasn't already standing in front of him.


	14. Two Weddings and a Funeral

Looking into the mirror in his hotel room, Yuri thinks this is the best he's looked since the wedding. His eyeliner's perfectly smudged and smoky, making his eyes look huge and green, and the fact his tiger tie was chosen by Victor only slightly detracts from the fact that it's fucking awesome.

The spark of life in his eyes is the finishing touch.

~

As always, Victor and Yuuri come in without knocking. They've done it when he's daydreaming. They've done it when he's crying. 

They did it to his heart.

And after a year of knowing them, it's still annoying. Nearly as annoying as the fact that, despite Yuuri being in a white shirt and Victor in black, they're wearing matching suits. Yuri may be head over heels for Otabek Altin, but the day he intentionally buys the same clothes as him is the day he has to banish Victuuri from his life. 

Fuck, he hates the fact he knows their ship name. He hates the fact that he helped Phichit create it. If Yuri has his way, the story of how will stay a secret for the rest of time.

Victor comes up behind him, a glint in his eye as he watches Yuri in the mirror. "So you didn't hate the tie." 

"Shut up, old man, it's shitty. It's just what I had, okay?" 

"Sure." 

The teasing edge to Victor's voice makes him turn back to the mirror, biting his lip. Yuuri catches the uncertainty in his face, and ruffles his hair, making him scowl. "You look awesome, Yurio, don't worry about it. He'll love it." 

_Fuck_ Katsuki Yuuri and his talent for noticing the big little things. 

Yuri goes a violent shade of red and sputters angrily at them while they smile proudly, like they're actually deluded enough to see him as some kind of angsty teenage son. 

Victor twinkles as he coughs and chokes. "You're not subtle, Yurio. In anything you do."

It's true- everyone he knows is impulsive, dramatic and extra as fuck, some more obviously than others but everyone, including him, in one way or another, and it tends to lead to competitions and alcohol and bad decisions that could be the best things any of them have ever done- but he still chokes on his spit, hacking like Niko before he can force any words. 

"But.. how did you _know?"_

Yuuri's eyes snag on Victor, shining. "Just.. the way you two were looking at each other. Like there was nobody else in the world." 

He fake gags, his cheeks still hot. "I'm going to shove every single one of these minibar crisps down your throats until you stop being so sickly fucking sweet and die of salt poisoning." 

Victor rolls his eyes fondly. "Calm down, edgelord." 

He growls in frustration, but there's a little voice in the back of his head that nudges his heart into flipping. 

Like there was nobody else in the world.

Cliched. 

Tripping from the mouth of a hopeless romantic.

But if there really was nobody else in the world, if it was just him and Otabek, clinging to each other as the dying sun rained down in ice and fire, Yuri thinks he'd be alright.

Because Beka's hands are cold, and his lips are warm, and he can make Yuri melt with just his eyes, and solidify him from just another lonely soul to something soft and breathing and living when he gets lost in the shadows.

Looking back in the mirror, there's a smile tugging at his lips, eyes far away. It's an expression he's seen before. It's Victor's face when he watches Yuuri skate, or when Sara stumbles across Mila singing as she moves around the flat. It's the bittersweet happiness that come when you realize this moment won't last forever. It's wanting a lifetime with them, and that lifetime wanting because it has an end. 

And it's not caring, because one look at them and you're gone. 

It's love. Yuri's in unbelievably love with his best friend.

As if he wasn't already sure. 

~

Yuri's hated the Grand Prix Final Banquets for as long as he can remember. 

Every year he's surrounded by repulsive strangers, whether it's ex- prima ballerinas with garish lipstick bleeding into the lines on their faces, who coo over his talent and snatch up his medals with perfumed claws to hold close to their rotting faces, or fat executives who swamp his hands with theirs. Pale and fleshy, sweating while their eyes shine nastily at the promise of money.

Every year he drinks a little more than Yakov allows to try and make the hours spin faster, and ends up with the room spinning instead, the faces blurring brightly into a lurid monster he doesn't like to think about.

Every year he begs to be let out, and every year he has to stay until angry tears prick the back of his eyes and his throat is aching.

But maybe this year will be different. Because this year, he'll have Beka by his side. 

Even the thought fills him with honey warmth, a smile playing on his lips as he stands outside the banquet hall with Victor and Yuuri, and it gives him the strength to push the doors open.

The room's packed with executives and publicists, the sweat stains under their armpits predicting their hurried retreat once they've secured enough skaters to feed their swollen wallets for another year. 

They're hard to deal with, but some of the skaters have found a way, a painted mask to wear that keeps them away, right when they think they're looking in at their hearts. 

Victor keeps them enchanted with his compliments and charm, with the way talent and success hangs around him like expensive cologne, and they can't invest in him fast enough. Chris pulls them in with a wink and leaves them reeling as he turns on the sex appeal, and by extension them, until they pull out like waking up from a dream and realize they've poured money into him like wine. 

But Yuuri never has. He shows them the real Katsuki Yuuri, pure and muted, and in the past it's never been striking enough. Year after year he'd be forgotten, thrown a few deals and shoots in misguided pity. 

And now they can't look away, crowding around him with fake smiles and empty words. With a gold medal around his neck, they can't get enough of him. 

But it's too late. 

He accepts the best with attentive nods and forced smiles, and then just as their eyes start to light up he grins and turns, making his way to Victor without a look back. Yuuri's not the type for revenge, but the little smirk on his face as he takes his fiancé's hand says enough. 

They're left untethered, faces bulging with outrage, and from across the hall Yuri grins in vicious satisfaction. Yuuri might not be the type for revenge, but he is, and watching these shitheads realizing they threw away gold almost makes up for seeing Yuuri's face when they did. 

Almost.

But then a beautiful boy turns and smiles at him, and it's like the sun is rising. 

When Otabek smiles, his eyes crinkle and shine, and there's a flash of chipped white teeth against soft lips, his dimples the finishing touch that makes him melt, every time. Yuri's not sure he'll ever be left standing when Beka smiles at him. He's not sure he'll ever want to be.

It's pointless, really, to think he'll ever be able to look away from this boy. Because as he tears his eyes off that incredible smile, there's nowhere to look but at the rest of him. 

A mistake. Beka has the ability to leave him voiceless with confusing emotions on a normal day, but this.. 

His shirt's translucent white, showing enough that if Yuri ever finds the maker he's torn between sending a thank you letter or a death threat. There's a hint of the slim muscles underneath every time he moves, making Yuri's mind blank and his cheeks pink.

The last of the executives are leaving, satisfied and richer, leaving only skaters and coaches, and he's loosened his tie in response, undoing a button on his shirt. It's only one button, hardly showing anything but the elegant lines of his jaw and collarbone, but Yuri can still feel his cheeks go hot. 

Destroyed so completely by just an undone shirt. He's ruined. This boy has ruined him. 

He doesn't care. 

~

Otabek comes over, close enough that Yuri can feel his warmth. "I missed you.."

It takes all of Yuri's willpower not to just pull his shirt and crush their lips together in front of everyone, but he didn't do years of conditioning to be unable to resist desire. So he just grins at him, hooking his hands around his belt loops to stop them from finding Beka's.

"It's only been a few hours, you fucking sap."

Otabek shrugs, smiling, and both of them know full well Yuri'd missed him just as much.

"You look beautiful."

It's a simple truth, soft and sincere, and he loves him for it. 

He'd exploded onto the junior skating scene in a blaze of brilliance and fury, and made history at thirteen. But what waited for him when he stepped off the ice, the red of victory bright on his cheekbones, was the word cute. Adorable. The Russian Fairy. A child, not a threat. It was an insult hidden behind sickly sweet smiles, the subtle meaning tasting sour. 

So he decided to send a jagged crack through the ice with the fire of his talent, to bring the rink shattering to the floor so he'd stand level with the adults at long last, and do it all with his knife-sharp, corrosive personality for all the world to see.

They stopped calling him cute. He became the prodigy, the Ice Tiger of Russia, the furious whirl of talent. Yuri Plisetsky, the Russian Punk. The cooing voices were shocked into silence, and articles and fanpages turned to his talent, the question of his looks shoved aside with a snarl and a vicious grin.

But it started to seep back in like blood red lipstick around the time he turned fifteen, the puckered scars of the Yuri's Angels putting words to his green eyes and the way his shoulders move under the glittering costumes he doesn't get to choose. Striking. Eye-catching.

More than anything else, just different. Interesting. 

Those are the words he could grow to like. As much as Yuri enjoys fucking with both gender roles and people's minds, he's never felt any desire to be anything other than the one he was given at birth. His face when the press edge to the extremes of pretty, which caresses the wounds left by cute with sharp fingers, or handsome, as he stands there in eyeliner and battered Doc Martens, means they end up falling back on the same words the Yuri's Angels love to use.

But the only one who's ever called him beautiful is Otabek.

Even if it's patently the other way around.

~

Beka's voice doesn't so much cut through his thoughts as slide over them like warm honey. "Do you want to get out of here?"

All it takes is a glance at his face to know what he means, and one at his lips to know his answer. 

"Thought you'd never ask."

He turns away, letting Yuri's eyes widen slightly at the sight of the slim muscles in his back shifting as he walks, and throws a grin over his shoulder before slipping through the grand doors. Yuri waits until his heart is shrieking at him too loudly to ignore, then goes after him. 

He's waiting down in the hallway with his hands in his pockets, leaning against the wall and smirking. Yuri stops a few feet away, and grins himself, a candle fire against the raging flames staring back at him, flickering amber in those dark eyes.

Beka comes closer, a painting of in the low light of the lamps, beautiful enough to make Yuri's heart hurt in his mouth, and kisses him. He winds his arms around his neck, drinking in his sweet warmth, the scent of him. His hand comes up to wind in Yuri's hair, golden in the dim light, and Beka takes the opportunity to deepen the kiss, drawing a low noise from the back of Yuri's throat. 

The sound makes him pull back, pupils wide and dark, just enough to push Yuri gently against the wall and hook his knee around his hip. He grins, and kisses him again, sweeter, slower, hotter than before, and Yuri melts into him, a soft moan ringing in the air. The sound's appealing enough that Otabek's breath hitches, and something in Yuri flickers into life. His hands trace the elegant slopes and soft shadows of Beka's back, moving slowly south, and Beka gasps into his mouth as he finally does what he's thinking about at night for a year.

And then there's a gasp.

They turn to see Mila and Sara, flushed with laughter and alcohol and eyes twinkling in shocked amusement.

And as they watch, Mila reaches into her purse, and hands Sara 2000 yen.


	15. Two Weddings and a Funeral

Otabek lets go of him quickly, biting at his soft lip with chipped white teeth, and Yuri should really be thinking up an excuse right now, but he's too busy wishing he was the one biting that lip. 

Mila's shit-eating grin only grows every second she takes in Otabek's tousled hair and adorably pink cheeks, the way Yuri's eyes keep tripping back down to his mouth. "I would say I'm surprised, but..."

The red dusting Beka's cheekbones only grows, and Yuri tears his eyes away, trying to dredge up a reply from somewhere in his melted mind. 

"Shut up and turn around."

She throws him the finger, dragging Sara back to the ballroom and giggling, and Otabek slides down the wall like a broken marionette, hands covering his face. 

"Oh, _fuck_.."

Yuri drops to his knees beside him, tugging his hands away from his face so he can look at him properly, grinning. "Is it really so terrible to be seen making out with me?"

He's joking, of course he is, but Beka kisses him anyway, soft. "Of course not, Yura. Don't be an asshole."

"You love this asshole."

The little crooked smile on Beka's face might actually be the best thing in the world. 

"Yeah. I do."

~

Victor and Yuuri's wedding is set for New Year, which looking back was definitely a mistake. Despite Yuuri's constant soft reassurances that he'd marry Victor anywhere, his fiancé is falling apart at the seams by the end of the first day of wedding planning.

He pulls Yuri aside while Yuuri's in the shower, white, and hisses, "Yurio, twenty-one days is not enough to plan a wedding!"

"How's that my fault? You shouldn't've been a dramatic little bitch and decided to get married at New Year, should you?"

He puts his hands together, desperate. "Please, _please,_ I know I said you didn't have to help but I'm freaking out here; I'll give you anything you want, just don't let the wedding be a disaster."

Yuri folds his arms, and considers whether three weeks of looking at flower arrangements and cake toppers is worth any sort of reward. But looking at the genuine panic in Victor's face, thinking about how little the couple had got done today despite working until the sun set, barely seeing each other, his answer was always going to be a yes.

He just doesn't see a reason why he shouldn't get free shit as well.

"Fine, I'll help with your shitty wedding. But I want three things in return."

Victor nearly collapses with relief. "Yes, yes, anything."

"I want a shit ton of those coffee beans with the chocolate on. Like, a sack. You can just get me a whole fucking sack of those. And you have to swear not to make Otabek do the music. Hire a fucking band, my boyfriend's not your in-house DJ."

"No, he's your in-ass-"

" _I will rip your fucking face off._ "

There's a silence as Victor tries to convince himself Yuri's not being serious. 

"Thirdly.. when we get back to St Petersburg, you have to make friends with Niko."

It's actually very entertaining to watch the blood drain from Victor's face. 

"B.. but... Yuri, she hates me, you _know_ she hates me."

"That's not her fault, is it? You're very easy to hate."

"She bit me."

"Sometimes I also want to bite you. You're very annoying, too."

He covers his face with his hands, letting out a strangled groan. "I.. okay... for Yuuri."

"You disgust me. Fine, for Katsudon."

Yuuri comes out of the shower, rubbing at his damp hair, and Victor's eyes fall wide, a blush high on his cheekbones. "What about me?"

Yuri takes one look at the look on Victor's face and decides to make a strategic retreat to his room, pulling out his phone as he flops onto his bed in a heap.

19:38

_**one look at katsudon in a towel and victors stopped functioning** _

_**mayday** _

_you're one to talk. i saw your face at the banquet, and i was fully clothed._

_**can you blame me?** _

_**suits are hot** _

_i'm beginning to think you have a clothing fetish._

_**dont kinkshame me** _

19:40

_i miss you.._

_**i miss you too** _

_**this fucking sucks** _

And it does. 

Yuri can't help thinking that he's like an addict now, drunk on the feel of soft skin and lips on his, and that this is his withdrawal before he gets to feel that bliss again. It hurts so much more than before, because then he'd never known what it was like to touch Beka. Not really.

He'd get these little touches, when their hands brushed or in their too-short embraces, and it'd be almost painful, the rush of emotions that flooded his body. And that was only the start, just enough to let him know that if he ever got the chance to feel it fully he'd never be able to stop.

And then he did, and it left him staggering with bittersweet feelings. His world burst with color again.

But now he's here, and those same colors are fading fast. 

~

For once in his life, Victor was right- twenty-one days is not enough to plan a wedding. Especially when one of the people involved is the self-pronounced shame to mother Russia, Victor Nikiforov, one of the two most extra people Yuri knows. 

(The other, of course, being himself. He just does it better.)

And if Victor doesn't choose a suit within the next two minutes, Yuri's seriously considering removing any competition and shoving his skates up his ass. 

They're standing in the suit shop, full of winter sunlight and designer tailoring. At first when they came in, they were greeted with awestruck stares and compliments, but the assistant's bright smile had glazed over hours ago, when Victor decided that he didn't want the white suit for the sixth time. 

"I swear to god, old man, if you don't hurry up and choose-"

"Yuri, listen, this is important! Black suit and grey tie, or grey suit and blue tie? The grey goes better with my hair, but Yuuri likes the black suit.. You choose, I just can't."

He lets out something strangled in between a growl and a hiss "Just pick, or I- fine, the grey one."

Victor considers. "Hm.. the black one. Definitely the black one."

He's going to scream.

~

But miraculously, by the day before, almost everything's in place. For some reason, things got a lot easier once they'd packed Victor off to one of Hasetsu's most expensive ryokans with Chris in tow. The guests have been trickling in since Christmas, the onsen full of elderly Japanese relatives that Yuri's been trying his best to avoid, while the skaters have been sharing their own ryokan and spamming his phone with pictures.

Yuuri's in the kitchen being fussed over by at least six old women, Victor's posted a picture on Instagram of the golden light through his champagne catching on his ring, and Mila just sent him a photo of a tipsy Phichit attempting to ask out his own boyfriend on a date. Understandably, Seng-Gil doesn't look impressed by the gesture.

Everything's ready, except for the thing, in Yuri's opinion, that matters most. The only thing left to do is to pick up Otabek from the airport.

Standing in Arrivals feels like a happy ending. 

For the past few months, he's been stepping out of plane after plane, pale and lonely, and almost everyone who mattered had been there waiting for him with kind words and warm hugs. He's had shoulder after shoulder to cry on, no matter how many times he'd pushed them away. 

And now he's finally strong enough to stand without them, and now he doesn't want to anymore.

It's his turn to be there for someone he loves.

So when Otabek steps through the gate, he's there with a sign scribbled in black eyeliner and a crooked grin, and the little answering smile lights up the whole fucking world.

Yuri thinks it's really meant to be the person getting off the plane who drops everything they're holding to sprint over and throw themselves into waiting arms, but then again he's never really been someone to follow the rules. 

So he crashes into Beka, wraps his legs around his waist and clings on as he kisses him until their lips are bruised and he's lightheaded and has to pull away.

Beka grins up at him, his eyes crinkling. "That was a welcome and a half."

Yuri scowls, clambering down. "Yeah, well. I guess I missed you."

He wouldn't have guessed that his sullen little confession could make Otabek smile like that. He wouldn't have guessed that _he_ could make Otabek smile like that. 

Like he makes him happy. Like he matters to him. Like somehow, he ended up in love with the raging whirlwind of messy blond hair and smudged eyeliner that is Yuri Plisetsky.

~

In a decision that Yuri thinks is incredibly cliched, overly romantic and somehow exactly right for the two of them, Victor and Yuuri are getting married on the beach at Hasetsu under the fireworks, right when the New Year comes in.

The rest of the wedding is no less idealistic. By eleven, he's standing with the rest of the wedding party at the end of a white carpet, a delicate arch of ivory roses curving gently over their heads. Each of them is cupping a warm glass candle, sending soft light rippling over their faces. It's quiet, the only sounds the murmurs of the guests and the gentle rush of the sea behind them. 

But the calm is disrupted by Victor, who takes his place under the arch silently. He's trembling, twisting his ring around and around his finger with shaking hands, the buttery gold gleaming in the candlelight. 

Mila and Chris's innuendos get only a soft distracted laugh. It takes Yuuri's own wedding party, Phichit and Mari, to get him to confess, and it comes out in a messy rush, quiet enough that the guests can't hear. 

The inside of Victor's head, all the fear of those quiet what-ifs and half-formed speculations, rings clear in his wide eyes, but he puts a hesitant voice to them anyway.

"..What if he doesn't come?"

And then they all turn to Yuri.

Not Mari, Yuuri's own older sister, the reason for his beginning, who was there when he stepped onto the pale ice for the first time and kept on being there for him. 

Not Phichit, who spent five years by his side in a foreign world amongst bright colors and strange, beautiful new experiences, who watched the middle of Yuuri's story unfold like flower petals.

They turn to Yuri, who came into the story right at the beginning of the happy ending, and sent the ink running across the pages into different words and unexpected sentences.

Sentences that might not have been wanted, words that nobody asked the universe to write, but ones that needed to be written. 

And isn't it Victor and Yuuri's turn to write their own story now?

"He's going to come."

It's like even the universe listens. The first notes of the melody ring high and clear, and a soft hush falls.

The triplets scatter ivory rose petals carefully as they come, trying their hardest to impress the guests they look up to. Behind them is Yuuri in white, smiling softly at them, eyes molten amber in the candlelight. Yuri can hear the little sigh of adoration from Victor, and see the shining tears welling in blue eyes.

Because of course Yuuri chose to walk down the aisle to Stay Close To Me. 

The song that started as a lament for Victor's loneliness, and then became something else, something more. 

The song that let his heart go from the iron bands that crushed it and put a gold one on his finger.

The song that started it all.

~

As the couple say their vows, Yuri can't help but let his eyes wander to the candlelit faces of the guests. Or just one guest, really.

He finds that face staring back at him with the tiniest hint of a soft smile, and the one that rises on his own is wide and clear. He's not ashamed of getting a little lost in his eyes, glowing softly with the depth of Yuri's whole fucking world inside.

The quiet voice of the priest pulls him away. 

"You have expressed your love to one another through the commitment and promises you have made. It is with these in mind that I pronounce you married.

You have kissed a thousand times, maybe more. But today, the feeling is new. Today, your kiss is a promise. You may kiss the groom."

The candles flicker out one by one, edging them into the night. There's a moment of silence in darkness, the world stilling on the edge of something beautiful.

And then the fireworks explode into showers of golden rain and jewel-colored sparks, illuminating Victor and Yuuri clinging to each other like their lives depend on it. 

The guests are cheering, Mila wiping away tears and Phichit not even trying to hide happy sobs. In the front row, Hiroko's weeping, her husband crying right beside her, and just behind them Yuri's eyes get pulled right back to Beka.

Just like they always do.

Like they have done since Barcelona.

Because as long as Beka's there, as long as those incredible eyes are in the same room as Yuri, he's fucked. 

Because this boy has reduced him to a pining sap, a drunken, heartbroken mess, and a lovedrunk teenager, without even trying.

And because he's finally realizing something.

He wouldn't have wanted it any other way.

**Author's Note:**

> trigger warnings: death, blood, violence, drug/alcohol use, hypothetical mention of abuse  
> constructive criticism would be great though this is my first fanfic so please go easy on me :)  
> will finish if people enjoy it! i have more chapters written  
> please leave a comment or kudos if you liked it and thanks so much for reading


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